Antivirus software is a type of endpoint protection that secures individual endpoints by detecting and blocking malicious files. Small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are just as likely to suffer from a malware attack as any large-scale organization. In fact, because they tend not to have the generous security budget that larger enterprises do, SMBs may seem like easier targets for hackers. To make sure you aren’t an easy target, we’ve put together this guide to the best antivirus for small businesses.
We live in a world where increasingly more employees are working remotely and using their own devices rather than office computers. This means that powerful endpoint protection has become crucial to keeping an organization’s network safe. Today, most business antivirus software is hosted either entirely or largely in the cloud. This means that solutions can take advantage of advanced machine learning technology to automate analytics, which greatly enhances detection rates. However, as business antivirus software has become more sophisticated, so have malware attacks. For this reason, it’s important to know that you’re investing in the best possible protection for your business.
In this article, we’ll explore the best antivirus for small businesses. For the purpose of these solutions, we consider businesses of less than 100 users to be “small”. Each of these offers slightly different features, including varying levels of threat protection, mobile device compatibility, and patch management. We’ll give you some background information on the business antivirus software provider and the key features of the solutions themselves, as well as the type of customer that they are most suitable for.
November 2023 Update: This list has been updated to reflect new features, product acquisitions, and platform updates. This list of the best antivirus software for small businesses is regularly re-evaluated as support for new features—such as AI- and ML-powered threat detection—continues to roll out.
ESET is known globally for their effective, lightweight cybersecurity solutions designed to protect organizations of all sizes against the most sophisticated known and zero-day threats. ESET Endpoint Security is their cloud-based endpoint protection solution, which offers multiple layers of defense technologies, automation and centralized management. It protects computers, mobile devices, file servers and virtual environments against malware and fileless attacks. ESET Endpoint Security is available as a standalone product and as a part of a wider cybersecurity bundle, which also includes file server security, disk encryption, a cloud sandbox and EDR.
ESET Endpoint Security combines machine learning technologies and crowdsourced threat intelligence to detect targeted malware, ransomware and fileless attacks. It does this by monitoring and evaluating all executed apps for malicious content, based on their known behaviors. Its powerful intrusion detection capabilities mean that ESET’s solution has excellent detection rates before, during and after execution. ESET Endpoint Security also offers protection that focuses on the web browser, preventing users from downloading malicious files and enabling admins to white- and blacklist URLs.
Administrators can manage all ESET endpoints, including mobiles, via one cloud-based unified management console. This, along with automatic updates, makes ESET’s solution easy to deploy and maintain, with no need for extra hardware.
ESET Endpoint Security is extremely lightweight, but performs as well as any solid anti-malware engine. It’s also a highly flexible solution: ESET Endpoint Security is compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux and Android operating systems, with built-in mobile device management for iOS and AndroidOS. Additionally, the console is available in 21 languages, and ESET offers localized support in 38 languages. This makes their solution ideal for SMBs with a diverse workforce and device fleet, who are looking for powerful antivirus software that won’t slow their systems.
Avast is a global leader in anti-malware applications, holding the second-largest share of the market worldwide. Avast offers complete endpoint and network security solutions for SMBs. Their antivirus solution is 100% cloud-based, which makes it easy to manage from one integrated platform.
Avast’s innovative security engine uses machine learning alongside behavioral and signature-based detection to identify and quickly remediate malware threats. They collect intelligence from almost half a billion endpoints, crowdsourcing information about bigger threats before they become public knowledge in order to stay one step ahead of bad actors.
Avast Small Business Solutions are compatible with any desktop, laptop or server. The solution designed to protect businesses against viruses by sandboxing and testing suspicious content, and its powerful threat detection capabilities block the malware before execution. Avast’s antivirus software is easy to install, has strong threat detection capabilities and its interface is user-friendly and easy to manage. Avast also offer an Avast Small Office Protection Solution, a set-and-forget service that provides defense against phishing, ransomware, and advanced cyberattacks across all devices.
Avast Small Business Solutions offer three package options: Essential, Premium, and Ultimate Business Security. This lets businesses pick the right level of protection. All three tiers have the same antivirus and firewall protection. The Essentials tier is ideal for growing businesses that want a centrally managed endpoint solution. The Premium tier adds a VPN and USB protection solution ideal for smnall-to-midsized teams. The Ultimate tier includes everything from the previous packages, plus patch management.
Avast Premium Business Security is an ideal solution for small- to midsized teams and self-employed individuals looking for a strong antivirus software solution to cover desktop devices.
WithSecure (formerly F-Secure) is known for their lightweight, low-impact antivirus solutions that always score highly in third-party tests. WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection cloud-based advanced antivirus software that offers powerful AI-driven protection for Windows, macOS and Linux devices against malware, ransomware, and data breaches. WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection is built natively on cloud, managed from a single console, and can be deployed instantly from a web browser.
WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection boasts high detection rates and excellent protection against script-based exploits, which account for 40% of all cyberattacks, according to the Ponemon Institute’s 2020 State of Endpoint Security report. Effective anti-phishing capabilities and browsing protection also secure users’ inboxes and browsers, preventing them from clicking on malicious links and visiting dangerous sites. In addition to this, WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection’s automated patch management for Windows and macOS can prevent up to 80% of attacks that use software vulnerabilities in operating systems or third-party software, like web browsers. Optional premium capabilities include: advanced application control that can block the execution of malicious applications and scripts; management of endpoint encryption; and an extra protection layer against ransomware. The platform also utilizes crowd-sourced intelligence gathered from its global client base to help prevent zero-day attacks.
WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection is scalable and can support organizations that have less than 20 connected devices, right up to those with over 1,000. It’s available as a standalone endpoint security product or as a part of WithSecure’s wider cybersecurity bundle, which also includes endpoint detection and response (EDR), vulnerability management, cloud security posture management, and Microsoft 365 email and collaboration protection. The solution is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems, as well as iOS and Android. As such, we recommend WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection as a strong solution for any SMB looking to protect their endpoints against viruses and ransomware, and particularly those with a variety of desktop and mobile endpoints in their device fleet.
AVG Technologies, a subsidiary of Avast, offers a line of antivirus software to protect desktops and mobile devices against malware attacks and privacy threats. Known for their personal protection solutions, AVG have extended their offering to provide protection to SMBs. Their Business Edition software is quick to install and deploy across multiple endpoints, and administrators can manage all security components remotely with the help of the AVG Cloud Management Console.
AVG Business secures your network with cloud-based real-time outbreak and AI detection, which protects against the newest known malware threats. This is combined with behavioural tests and sandboxing to detect and eliminate threats quickly. A firewall adds an extra layer of protection against online security threats, and AVG’s Linkscanner checks webpages before users open them, displaying the safety ranking for each page in their search engine results. Additionally, their recently added CyberCapture feature protects against malicious files by sending a copy of any unrecognized downloads to their Threat Lab for analysis.
On top of its network security features, AVG Business includes anti-spyware to protect devices from spy- and adware that track personal information. It also includes a file shredder, which securely deletes files to prevent unwanted recovery. This is especially useful for systems that hold sensitive data.
AVG Business is a powerful antivirus software that works automatically behind the scenes, without distracting users from their work. The solution also comes with free email and phone support and automatic updates. This, along with its remote management system, makes AVG Business a great solution for small business owners managing devices off-site.
Bitdefender is a global leader in endpoint protection software, protecting over 500 million systems in 150 countries. Their GravityZone solutions are consistently ranked highly in independent security tests, providing effective protection for SMBs and large enterprises alike. GravityZone Business Security is Bitdefender’s antivirus software designed specifically for small businesses. Admins can use one cloud-based console to manage all workstations and servers, as well as track all security events.
GravityZone Business Security uses machine learning and AI to monitor networks and detect malware, ransomware and zero-day exploits. As with some other solutions on this list, this information comes from the cloud so, if an issue is detected on one system, all others are made aware of it. This results in a much faster response to new threats, allowing Bitdefender to protect against attacks before they’re executed. Bitdefender’s solution consistently has extremely high detection rates with very few false positives in third-party tests, so there’s no need to worry about safe files being blocked and quarantined by the software. The solution also comes equipped with the capability to block remote desktop protocol (RDP) brute force attacks, which hackers use to execute remote logins to Windows PCs. RDP is the most common way of connecting remote desktops to a network, and if the connection is compromised then an attacker can spread malware to other endpoints across the network. Because of this, the RDP attack blocking feature is particularly useful for organizations with employees working from home.
Finally, Bitdefender’s customizable dashboard allows admins to view reports and alerts to help users stay on top of security events. This dashboard can also control employee access to certain websites or applications, which enhances productivity as well as blocking sites that are known for presenting security risks.
Bitdefender’s GravityZone Business Security is a brilliant solution for small organizations looking for fast and effective antivirus software. For slightly larger organizations, users should consider adding the Advanced Threat Security add-on, which includes HyperDetect and sandbox analysis.
Copenhagen-based Heimdal™’s offering to the antivirus solution table is their Next-Gen Endpoint Antivirus. It’s a robust product that is efficient in blocking and preventing both known and unknown threats – such as data injections, viruses, APTs, data leaks, and ransomware – as well as blocking spam and adverts. It’s easily scalable, though some users found a learning curve with initial implementation of the product. The solution’s configuration is highly customizable and the scanning and reporting functionality can be customized to function by the week, day, hour, or minute. Admins can navigate the product via a unified dashboard that provides a flexible and overarching view into the entire company network, complete with in-depth reporting capabilities.
Heimdal™’s Next-Gen Endpoint Antivirus offers local file, signature, and registry scanning in real-time, providing actionable insights into device health and delivering code-based detection and remediation. The solution also uses behavioral analytics to scan for any potential changes in code post-delivery. Unknown or suspicious URLs are automatically blocked, with alerts sent to the IT team for further assessment and approval. Finally, with the sandboxing and backdoor inspection feature, all suspicious files are automatically executed in Heimdal™’s sandbox, where they can be run and examined without potential risk to the endpoint.
On top of its antivirus features, Heimdal™’s Next-Gen Endpoint Antivirus offers further protection through the built-in Mobile Device Management (MDM) functionality, which allows admins to oversee and monitor all mobile devices that are part of the network – regardless of where their users may be in the world. Admins can remotely wipe or lock compromised or stolen devices and use location data to find out where lost devices are.
Overall, Heimdal™’s antivirus solution offers intuitive and intelligent, robust yet flexible protection that can be tailored to a company’s specific needs without too much fuss on implementation and configuration. We would recommend it as a strong antivirus software for small- to medium-sized businesses.
Norton is a global cybersecurity brand that operates under Gen Digital, the product of a 2022 merger between Avast and NortonLifeLock. It offers a variety of security packages that specialise in online privacy, identity and device security, and consumer solutions. Norton Small Business, with capacity to protect up to 20 devices, is their antivirus solution for SMBs. This solution is similar to Symantec’s previous SMB-focused solution, Endpoint Protection 14, but with EP14 discontinued, Norton Small Business picks up the slack. The solution is compatible with iOS and Android devices, as well as PCs and Macs.
Norton Small Business offers cloud-based setup and device management, which makes it quick to install without an additional tech support. This also allows for an admin to manage the software across a remote team. The software provides extensive security features, including technology to detect and eliminate malware, ransomware and zero-day exploits. It detects and organizes malicious files according to their reputation and behavior, so that they can be blocked more quickly in the future. Norton Small Business also gives the user warnings before downloading potentially malicious files or clicking on suspicious links.
One of the most attractive features of this solution is that it’s easy to deploy the software onto new devices further down the line. This makes Norton Small Business a particularly good antivirus software for smaller businesses with plans to expand.
Sophos offers an expansive suite of endpoint, mobile, network, email, cloud and web security solutions. Sophos’ solutions work in real-time, using AI to predict evolving threats. They are cloud-based and cloud-managed, so that admins can oversee the protection of laptops, servers and public cloud apps from one remote interface. Intercept X is Sophos’ market-leading endpoint protection solution. Previously, Sophos have targeted an majorly SMB audience, but Intercept X’s scalability means that they’re now also a recognized brand in the enterprise market.
Intercept X uses powerful artificial intelligence to detect known and unknown malware, ransomware and other dangerous exploits and remove up to 99% of threats. It then synchronizes the protection across all connected devices so that, if a threat is found on one device, it’s blocked on all of them. Intercept X’s managed threat response analysts determine the potential impact of each threat and take action to neutralize them on your security team’s behalf, saving them precious time and resources. Finally, admins can manage all of their security tools, including firewall and email gateways, in the Sophos Central console.
The use of AI makes Intercept X smarter but also more scalable so that SMBs can leverage the same powerful technology that larger businesses have access to. It works across all desktops, laptops, servers, tablets and mobile devices, and is compatible with all major operating systems, so this solution really can be leveraged by anyone.
Trellix Endpoint Security (formerly McAfee Total Protection) is a comprehensive antivirus and anti-malware platform that allows IT teams to centrally manage and respond to endpoint threats. Trellix ENS proactively hunts endpoint threats and enables businesses to simplify their endpoint security workflows with automation to save IT resources and improve system operations for users.
Trellix ENS uses machine learning and behavioral analytics to detet and classify zero-day malware threats in near real time. The solution learns the behaviors of each threat that it detects, so it can more quickly identify future attacks that use similar techniques. The platform is very lightweight; it uses a common service layer and Trellix’s anti-malware core engine to reduce the amount of system resources that it needs to run. This allows users to work securely without impacting their productivity. From the central management console, IT admins can view insights into live attacks and indicators of compromise, which they can use to remediate attacks and prevent them spreading laterally through the network.
Trellix ENS works particularly well in tandem with Windows desktop and server systems, enabling admins to manage the Trellix platform, Windows Defender Antivirus policies, Windows Firewall settings, and Defender Exploit Guard all via one console. As such, we recommend Trellix Endpoint Security as a strong antivirus and anti-malware solution for mid-sized organizations, particularly those looking to secure a Windows device fleet.
Trend Micro offers a range of cybersecurity solutions that are founded on three principles: simplicity, safety and trust. With 30 years of experience, they are recognized as being a market leader in endpoint security. Trend Micro’s Worry-Free Business Security is a cloud-based “all-in-one” solution that provides endpoint, web and email protection in one bundle. It’s compatible with desktops, laptops and mobile devices.
Trend Micro’s Worry-Free Business Security leverages a combination of threat protection techniques to close security gaps. These include machine learning, behavioral analysis, application control and good-file check. Because of this, it has a good detection rate of binary and scripted threats, and strong anti-phishing capabilities and exploit detection. However, the solution does miss some types of advanced cloaked attacks. Trend Micro’s Worry-Free Business Security’s automatic updates and 24/7 support make it easy to deploy and just as easy to run. There is very little that the security team have to maintain. Additionally, admins can manage the software online from a remote console.
However, it performs well in detecting known, yet still dangerous, phishing and scripted threats. Additionally, Trend offer a wide range of security solutions, including email and web security, which can be stacked and implemented as an extremely effective security suite.
FAQs
Why Do You Need Business Antivirus?
A computer virus is a section of malicious code written to have a detrimental effect on a computer. Once installed, a virus can replicate itself, spreading through the system and corrupting or destroying data as it goes. Some viruses also enable threat actors to spy on—or even take control of—your machine.
Implementing a business antivirus software is an effective way of preventing viruses from infecting your users’ machines and spreading across your network. As well as protecting against file-based attacks (i.e., malicious files that users may download, such as phishing email attachments), antivirus software can filter web-based threats such as malicious webpages, pop-up adverts, and spam sites.
How Does Antivirus Software Work?
Antivirus software scans the files, applications, and programs on each device that it’s installed on, and compares the code of each of these assets with a database of known malicious code. If a piece of code on the device matches that of a known virus, the antivirus solution quarantines or permanently removes it.
Quarantining files moves them to a specific location where they can’t harm your user’s device or spread to the rest of your network, but it means that the antivirus provider can analyze the threat and update their software so that it can block similar threats in the future. This intelligence is then crowdsourced across the entire fleet of devices that the antivirus provider is protecting—not just those in your organization, but in others, too. This means that if a threat is detected on one device, all others protected by that provider are alerted to it. This crowdsourced intelligence helps to protect against unknown and zero-day threats, as well as the known threats stored in the provider’s database.
The best antivirus for small business also uses machine learning to continuously analyze your environment and any threats that are identified, so that it can keep improving its detection rate.
Because antivirus software protects the individual devices connected to a network, it’s best suited to smaller organizations that don’t have a large or complex device fleet to protect. This is because, the more devices you have, the more time-consuming the task of deploying the software and updating it will be. For that reason, we recommend that larger organizations instead consider implementing an endpoint protection platform (EPP) or endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution as an alternative.
What Should You Look For In A Business Antivirus Software?
Antivirus software can be a powerful line of defense for an SMB, but it’s important that you choose a solution that’s going to offer strong protection, balanced with usability. To help you do that, here’s our list of the key features you should consider when choosing a business antivirus software:
- Automatic and manual scanning. The best antivirus software for SMBs allows you to schedule scans to be completed automatically at a time when they’ll cause the least disruption to your users. However, you should also be able to instigate scans manually as needed.
- Web filtering. Your chosen antivirus solution should include a web filter that allows you to restrict user access to harmful websites through allow and deny lists and will help to block spam and pop-up ads.
- URL scanning and attachment sandboxing. Phishing is one of the most prevalent threats that organizations today are facing. To help combat it, your antivirus software should scan emails for malicious URLs and open an attachments in a secure sandbox environment, where they can’t affect your user’s device.
- Automatic updates. Your solution should automatically update itself and deploy any necessary third-party patches. Not all employees will keep their software up to date (we’ve all hit “Restart Later” once or twice), so your antivirus solution should be able to do it for them.
- Straightforward deployment. Business antivirus software must be installed on every individual endpoint, so you need to make sure that this process is quick and easy to carry out—especially if you have lots of devices to protect.
- Efficient resource consumption. Antivirus software is supposed to improve performance by removing viruses and malware that can cause machines to become sluggish; however, some solutions use a lot of system resources and can cause devices to slow down when they run scans. If you can’t find a solution that’s lightweight, you need to make sure that you can schedule scans for a time when your users aren’t using their devices.
