McAfee Launches SecurityCenter

McAfee.com is getting a leg up on its competition,
announcing Tuesday its strategy to bring security to distributed computing
and Web services networks.

In what is becoming an industry standard, McAfee.com is launching a free
download to introduce new users to the new strategy before charging for the
service: SecurityCenter, a Web-based application that scans and rates a
PCs security (on a scale of 1 to 10).

Part of McAfee.com’s grid security services initiative, the application
also gives user’s access to it’s virus definition library, with the hope
the service will be enough to convince users to pay for down the road.

Srivats Sampath, McAfee.com president and chief executive officer, said his
company’s approach to security services (via the Web), is one that makes
SecurityCenter unique.

“The massively distributed architecture of the Internet, interconnected
through open standards, provides a platform to utilize the power of
grid-based computing towards solving a very real problem — the problem of
constantly securing the global Internet in real time as threats arise,” he
said. “Grid Security Services are a response to the rapidly evolving need
to continuously protect users on the Internet by leveraging the massively
distributed capability afforded by it.”

How the company’s grid services work is this: a grid nucleus manages all
the information gathered by its nodes (or SecurityCenter users). When a
node finds a new security threat, all the nodes are informed of the threat
using an extensible markup language (XML)-based schema and security patches
made available for download.

The grid nucleus is a group of secure McAfee.com servers that officials
expect to enhance with Web services security standards in the future,
improving on hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP) and simple object access
protocol (SOAP). Grid alerts are configurable and can be used with other
programs like Microsoft’s .Net alerts.

But first, the company needs to get users hooked on SecurityCenter, which
comes with a number of nifty applications for end users:

  • Security index rating a user’s PC from one to 10, displaying security
    based on anti-virus, anti-hacker and anti-abuse criteria.
  • Security Alert, a real-time notification program that sends alerts to
    its users with links to security patches and an explanation of the
    vulnerability.
  • Hacker vulnerability scanner that scans the user’s Internet ports to
    determine whether they are susceptible to break-in.
  • World virus map that shows in real-time the extent of a virus, down to
    city level.
  • Virus information library, an online reference manual of known viruses,
    worms and hoaxes and fixes.

Harry Fenik, president and chief executive officer analysis firm The Sageza
Group, said real-time dissemination of security threats is important in
today’s Internet envronment.

“There are several steps in the process of protecting people from the
negative aspects associated with the Internet,” he said. “Companies should
strive to educate, to make general information available, to help users to
ascertain their individual state of security and to help people protect
themselves.”

Hoping to snare users to its other programs, McAfee.com also bundles its
SecurityCenter with 30-day trial versions of its personal firewall and
privacy programs.

Officials would not say when they would start charging for SecurityCenter,
though the program will likely be a monthly service charge.

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