Running 4 Security Products At Once | Comments On My Solution
I'm quite paranoid about ransomware given I suffered a horrific attack some months ago. I run multiple security products which are all quite different though. I know not to run multiple anti-virus solutions, but I'm wondering if anyone can critique my logic below. My machine is a heavily overclocked i7 (liquid cooled), and I run 64GB of RAM so performance is usually not an issue, though some applications seem to have some trouble - I just set all this up a few days ago.
1. I run BitDefender TS2016 as my main AntiVirus program; All settings on, Max security options selected, Paranoid mode (I'm sure eventually this will get annoying... and I'll turn it off... but unfortunately in the past I kept turning off security software until I finally just removed it altogether... and... I got hit by TWO ransomwares at once - seriously I had one ransomware literally encrypt the files that another ransomeware had already encrypted...)
2. I have WebRoot Secure Anywhere AV as my 'behavior analysis' component. It seems to run without issue with BDTS2016 and is designed to operate with more conventional AV like BitDefender (I know competitor products shouldn't be discussed on the forums, I'm just asking about my logic of running ALL of these programs together with BDTS2016 which is my main solution). I've read that it allows BD to take the lead, and only operates after BD in priority, so it shouldn't in theory cause too much trouble. I also know its a heuristic behavior analysis tool rather than a signature testing tool. Many WebRoot settings are turned off; I've read that its firewall is different though in that it covers outgoing whilst BDTS2016 covers outgoing - can someone confirm that?
3. I run Hitman Alert 3 as an 'alert console' with most of the settings turned down. I like its anti-ransomware track record, and I like the slick console that alerts me about a few things BD and WR don't seem to catch. It's not an AV to my knowledge, just a security 'monitor' type package. I also have premium Hitman anti-virus, which the alert console uses as a second-opinion active scanner. I don't know much about that scanner, but it saved me in the past before I had BD or WR.
4. Finally I have the experimental MalwareBytes Anti-Ransomware Beta. I don't know much about this except that its a dedicated anti-ransomware only background app that doesn't do anything but watch for ransomware, my main issue, fear, and white whale.
***Performance aside (I haven't been running this setup long enough to tell how it impacts perf); are there security structural problems with running these 4 programs together? I feel like in theory it should be ok, but I'm sure they're interacting somehow, and given that ALL 4 of them have anti-ransomware components, I don't want to be in the situation where I actually have WEAKENED my ransomware defense by having too many and they block or interfere with each other.
Any comments from knowledgeable persons would be appreciated.
