McAfee rolls up Net security
McAfee announces new security products and a management console that guard desktop machines, servers, and Internet gateways from external and internal threats.
The announcement continues security monolith McAfee's strategic push beyond the antivirus market into the broader network security field.
As reported July 30 by CNET'S NEWS.COM, the announcement includes McAfee's entry into the firewall market with WebWall, which is marketed as part of McAfee's new NetShield Security Suite.
"Everyone is sort of vacating the firewall market, because security is seen by many companies as a cost center," said Jim Balderston, analyst at Zona Research. "If McAfee is successful in going into the territory that the firewall vendors are abandoning and if there are still significant revenues there, that's a shrewd strategy."
The new management console, McAfee Enterprise, will manage the Total Virus Defense Suite, McAfee's virus and security offerings, as well as the company's help desk suite of products. Total Virus Defense Suite combines McAfee's new NetShield Security Suite for gateway and server protection with its existing VirusScan Security Suite for desktop defense.
Also new in McAfee's security offerings are virus scans that check software downloads and email, can plug into other vendors' firewalls, and monitor Windows NT email servers.
The new security offerings guard all types of servers in an enterprise, including corporate file servers, email servers, Internet, or intranet servers, from viruses and unauthorized data access while delivering encryption, authentication, and intradepartmental firewalls to protect against internal or external hackers.
The new management console also can distribute antivirus updates and other software electronically and monitor network traffic.
"It's a complete solution for security and antivirus--encryption, authentication, firewall, and antivirus?and all managed through one console," said Gene Hodges, McAfee director of product management and marketing.
The software, due to ship next month, is priced at $30 per user for 500 users, $23 per user for 1,000.