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Admin Tools

#13608 OSE Security Suite compatibility

Posted in ‘Admin Tools for Joomla! 4 & 5’
This is a public ticket

Everybody will be able to see its contents. Do not include usernames, passwords or any other sensitive information.

Environment Information

Joomla! version
n/a
PHP version
n/a
Admin Tools version
n/a

Latest post by nicholas on Wednesday, 19 September 2012 15:26 CDT

user28055
Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? No
Have I searched the tickets before posting? No
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? Yes
Joomla! version: 2.5.7
PHP version: 5.3.14
MySQL version: 5.1
Host: (optional, but it helps us help you)
Admin Tools version: 2.3.2

Description of my issue:
Will there be any issues or things to take into account if I install OSE Security Suite as second security tool?

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
I believe I had already replied to this question a lot of times. Running multiple security solutions does not offer better protection for your site. It will simply give you less performance and more headaches when something doesn't work properly. If you have two security solutions and something gets blocked when it shouldn't, which one caused it? Good luck figuring this out – it's very difficult and requires a lot of experience. If you ask for my support and I see that you have multiple security extensions I will ultimately decline to provide any assistance as I can't know which security solution is causing this issue. Therefore I can not guarantee the quality of my reply or ensure that I'm not wasting your time trying to figure out another developer's bug/feature.

I took the decision to decline support when other security solutions are installed almost a year ago, when I was faced with dozens of angry support requests and "bug reports" about alleged issues with the backend of the site. As you may have noticed, Admin Tools never filters back-end requests. It's protection stops the moment you are logged into your site's backend. It so happened that at that point in time a competitive product added a feature which would stupidly block back-end requests for logged in Super Administrators with a "403 - Access Denied" message. Having wasted so many hours trying to understand how somebody else's software works and proving that I'm not an elephant I've decided to just not bother with those situations any more.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

user28055
Thanks for your detailed answers on my support tickets! That really helps me a lot.

I am still wondering if a virus scanner like OSE Anti-Virus would be a good addition to Admin Tools Professional. I think ATPRO does not have a full virus scanning engine, right?

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
The term "virus scanner" is grossly misleading for several reasons.

The most obvious reason is that the very definition of a computer virus doesn't fit by any stretch of imagination to the way PHP works. As a result there can be no such thing as a "PHP virus". This is marketing hype.

The second reason is that a virus scanner uses signatures and heuristics to analyse binary code. Since we are talking about source code, the term "virus scanner" is merely marketing hype. It's like calling a bottled water dispenser an "advanced dissemination device of self-contained personalised rations of performance enhancing mineral-enriched hydrogen oxide". Sounds cool, but it's definitely not.

So, what is it? It's simply some code which scans PHP files against some predefined signatures of potentially malicious code structures. The same thing we have in PHP File Change Scanner to calculate the "Threat Level" (which, too, is marketing hype for saying "a number which should show you how likely is a file to be malicious code").

I resisted the urge to call it a "virus scanner" because I don't like giving fancy names to dull things to make me sound smart. I prefer to write smart code and give it a dull name instead.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

user28055
Thanks again for your explanations!

In my case I will have user uploading files and other users downloading those files (images and office documents). Those non-PHP files that users upload can have "virus" infections and I would like those infected files to be detected. Would you say that this makes sense and is this something ATPRO can do?

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
Please remember that no PHP-based software can scan for what you have in mind when you are thinking "virus", i.e. a virus or malware which can infect a Windows computer. As with all files downloaded from the Internet, your users should use a commercial virus scanner application to scan them before opening them.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

user28055
Ok, I think that is why OSE uses ClamAV on the same server server to scan uploaded files for those malware that can infect Windows computers.

Users should have their virus scanners active, that is true. But it may affect the website's reputation if it lets user download infected files.

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
ClamAV is a binary, not a PHP script. Sure you can do that, but it's not a universal solution unless you have the user make sure that ClamAV is installed properly on their server, path set up in the component and make sure that PHP can actually execute shell commands. Regarding the latter, I consider it a security hole and I'd rather forbid that. Besides, you should really limit the kind of files your users can upload. Don't allow them to upload files with executable code. No antivirus is 100% correct. If you promise your visitors that files from your site are virus free you will be lying to them.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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