McAfee puts Total Protection 2.0 into beta
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InfoWorld - McAfee has released beta version of its next-generation Total Protection 2.0 consumer security software.
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On Wednesday, Symantec released a beta of its new enterprise security product, Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0, formerly codenamed Hamlet. The beta marks the company&#39;s most significant update to its enterprise security software in years.
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Citing the urgent need to protect its users from online threats, America Online Inc. (AOL) will begin bundling antivirus software from McAfee Inc. with the latest version of its software, AOL 9.0, according to a statement from the company.
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Citing the urgent need to protect its users from online threats, America Online will begin bundling antivirus software from McAfee with the latest version of its software, AOL 9.0, according to a statement from the company.
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(InfoWorld) - Top executives from the security firm McAfeeÂ went on the offensive Monday against Microsoft, saying Vista will be even less secure for customers than previous versions of Windows. The day after McAfee took out a full-page advertisement in the Financial Times to publicly air its grievances over the security of Vista, McAfee Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) George Samenuk, Vice President and Chief Scientist George Heron and Chief Security Architect John Viega delivered the same message in person in New York. "We are disturbed by the fact that with Vista, end customers will be less secure," Samenuk said. "Customers trust us ... To erode that trust would hurt all Internet users, all PC users. I don't think Microsoft wants that, nor does McAfee want that." Two security elements in Vista fare chief among McAfee's concerns, executives said. In Vista, Microsoft is locking down the kernel of the OS through a feature called PatchGuard on 64-bit versions. Microsoft's argument is that this will keep miscreants out of the OS and prevent the incidence of attacks, and it is something for which customers have been asking. "Fooling around with the kernel while it's running is like changing the sparkplugs on your car when the engine is running," said Stephen Toulouse, a senior product manager at Microsoft. "It's never been a good thing for users." But McAfee said since PatchGuard also prevents third-party security companies from getting inside the OS, they can't activate crucial security measures in their software to protect the OS from intruders. PatchGuard is not new in Vista, said Bruce McCorkendale, a distinguished engineer with McAfee competitor Symantec Corp., which shares McAfee's consternation over the feature. He said Symantec has been petitioning for Microsoft to change the feature since the company introduced it in its 64-bit version of Windows XP, but the company will not budge. "If you ask any security vendor that offers advanced protection, you'd get the same answer [about PatchGuard]," McCorkendale said. "It's just inhibiting the way security vendors do their jobs." However, according to Jupiter Research, only 5 percent of companies with 100 employees or more are running Windows XP in its 64-bit version, and that adoption is not supposed to ramp up significantly anytime soon, said analyst Joe Wilcox. "If this new [feature] affects 64-bit only and nobody is using 64-bit, what's the problem?" he said. The other big concern with Vista for McAfee lies in a new security interface called Windows Security Center (WSC). Microsoft will not allow this interface to be turned off, so McAfee and other third-party users can't install their own security-management consoles on Vista machines, executives said. McAfee's argument is that third-party security products can better detect potential or existing security problems that Vista inherently can, and unless those can be surfaced through the interface, users will not be alerted to them, Viega said. Some believe security vendors are crying foul over Vista because Microsoft's ability to control security features of the OS is a threat to their livelihood. Companies such as McAfee and Symantec have all but built their businesses on the fact that Windows is inherently insecure, and add-on security software is needed to protect it from intrusion. "Historically, when Microsoft has gotten into a market, the number of competitors goes down," Wilcox said. However, he said there is a legitimate concern, supported by precedence, that not only will vendors be pushed out of the market, but there will be less innovation in Windows security products and more problems will arise. Wilcox cited Internet Explorer as an example of an area in which Microsoft beat competitors, but then did not innovate on the product until it faced competition once again. "Microsoft won the browser war and for years abandoned the territory," Wilcox said. If Microsoft successfully reduces the number of competitors by building security into Windows, it might also become lackadaisical about security improvements, thus opening the OS up to more attacks.
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The update uses stronger encryption and does a better job of letting only authorised users join wireless nets. The improvements have been made to re-assure businesses that wi-fi networks can be made safe enough to be really useful and widely deployed.
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Workshare announced an updated version of its content-protection suite Monday, adding a network-monitoring appliance to augment the company's standalone desktop-monitoring software.The network-based Protect Network appliance, which monitors outbound network Web, instant messaging, FTP, and mail channels, sits at either the network egress point or in front of critical data repositories. It is designed to prevent unauthorized transmission of content.It works in conjunction with other pieces of the company's Content Protection Group suite, including endpoint-security software, Workshare Protect 6, which monitors for unauthorized content use on the desktop. The Workshare Management System is a centralized policy and management server used to establish content-security policy through Workshare's pattern-matching technology."It analyzes what the content is, including whether encryption should be applied, and prompts the user or stops some kinds of transactions," says Marty Jost, senior director of product marketing. "Workshare will also detect hidden fields in spreadsheets, which users may include by mistake."Workshare makes use of a fingerprinting technology to protect unstructured data through automatic or manual blacklisting and whitelisting and can automatically crawl Microsoft file shares. When Workshare detects potential policy violations, it can notify the manager or block traffic.The latest version of the product provides enterprise-wide distribution and management of the software, making it easier to deploy than the previous version, which was manually installed. Workshare has 130 employees and was founded in 1998 by Barrie Hadfield, CTO, with $20 million in venture capital funding from Steelpoint Capital Partners, Intel Capital, and Quester.London-based Standard Chartered Bank, which has global operations that extend into Asia, Africa, and elsewhere, has tested the Workshare content-protection system and is poised to deploy it to approximately 60,0000 desktops worldwide."As a bank, we have a lot of sensitive information and account data as well as proprietary data," says John Meakin, group head of information security at Standard Chartered Bank. "We have to put in place a mechanism that tracks what happens across the network."Sometimes it's necessary for bank representatives in a mobile environment to share client data under certain circumstances, Meakin says, and Workshare would be useful in applying restrictions, such as checking to make sure data is encrypted before it's transmitted. "Workshare will enable us to see where the information is going and intervene," he says.Workshare Protect 6 costs $30 per seat, and the network-monitoring appliance starts at $5,000.Network World is an InfoWorld affiliate
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Blog: This ambitious suite will go beyond basic antivirus and firewall protection for your mobile device.
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Finjan Software, the leading provider of proactive secure content management solutions for enterprises, announces today 10 serious security vulnerabilities discovered by Finjan&#39;s Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC) in WindowsÂ® XP Service Pack 2 (SP2
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Antivirus software company McAfee Inc. said on Monday that a new version of its VirusScan Enterprise software contains so-called "intrusion prevention" features that can protect computers from attacks such as buffer overflows, which are often used by viruses, worms and malicious hackers to compromise vulnerable Microsoft Corp. Windows machines.
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(InfoWorld) - McAfee Inc. has apologized to users for bugs in the company's new line of client protection software, released last month. In an e-mail sent to some users last week, McAfee Executive Vice President Bill Kerrigan acknowledged that there had been glitches in the roll out. "We would like to extend our sincere apologies to anyone who may have had problems with their computers due to the upgrade," he wrote. Not all McAfee customers have been given the new software, which is going through a phased roll out, according to a McAfee spokeswoman. However, users who receive software updates from McAfee directly, or who purchased the software in the past month may have had problems, she said. Both McAfee and rival Symantec Corp. have been contending with Microsoft Corp.'s recent entry into the antivirus market, hoping to stay one step ahead of their new competitor. With this new line of products, code-named "Falcon," McAfee introduced a new user interface as well as its SiteAdvisor Web site-rating software. McAfee estimates that fewer than 1 percent of customers who downloaded the new software have had difficulties, but the problems they experienced could be annoying. The new software didn't work well with some ISP (Internet service provider) software, causing browsing slow-downs for some users, the company said. And customers who had disabled firewall protection would be presented with notification messages that could not be ignored, an annoyance for some. Some customers were simply confused by the new user interface, McAfee added. "While we believe no oneâs computer protection was compromised, we have worked quickly and hard to resolve the issues," Kerrigan said. "In fact, we have already sent out an update that automatically fixed the glitches caused by the upgrade." Customers who have complained about the bugs are being offered a free 3-month extension to their subscription, a McAfee spokeswoman said. The bugs made Web surfing a drag, said Matt Saefkow a programmer in Cleveland. "One out of every 10 images would not load unless I refreshed the page a number of times, " he said. "I was frustrated to the point where I no longer had any interest in trying to fix a program that should have helped my computer stay alive." Even before this latest update, Saefkow had experienced problems running FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and P-to-P (peer-to-peer) software on his PC, but the Web browsing bug was the last straw, he said. He has chronicled his difficulties with theÂ software on his blog. He now plans to remove the McAfee software and download a free product, which he hopes will be less of a drain on his PC. "When McAfee itself is causing a computer to feel like it's affected [by malicious software] that's counterproductive," Saefkow said. "I'm not going to be spending money on antivirus." Â
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Easy-peasy-sleazy: A new piece of PHP code making the malware rounds can install a phishing site on a compromised server in about two minutes.
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Dubbed AOL 9.0 Security, the latest version of America Online's software will give dial-up and high-speed subscribers free McAfee antivirus software and automatic upgrades. -The Washington Post
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Security software specialist McAfee Inc. has added a new module to its virus scan engine to help businesses combat the growing spyware scourge.
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Second beta version of the upcoming browser features an improved interface, phishing protection.
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Beehive Code Now Available in Apache; XMLBeans Officially Approved as Apache Project
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Test of 15 antivirus packages shows failures in four. Microsoft pledges improvements; McAfee says its updates weren't included.