The latest version of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.0i, released
on Wednesday by corporate parent Network Associates,
now includes intrusion prevention, the company said.
The new version makes full use of the
McAfee Protection- in-Depth strategy, which aims to shield users from the
wide array of security threats that abound on the Internet. Even
though the product is called VirusScan, it is no longer limited to anti-virus software, as it was when McAfee launched the product line
years ago — in a more innocent time.
2004 has been a record year for virus and intrusion attempts. A study recently released
by Deloitte & Touche found that IT
security attacks on the world’s leading financial institutions have more
than doubled in a year.
Beyond anti-virus, it also protects against malware/spyware, operating
system and application software vulnerabilities and unauthorized
intrusions/hacker attacks. Version 8.0i adds new advanced
host-based intrusion prevention functionality plus technology to protect
against buffer overflow exploits that target certain Microsoft software
and OS vulnerabilities. The intrusion prevention security features let
administrators create policies for a more granular level of network
protection across processes, shared and mapped drives. Support of the
Cisco Network Admission Control (NAC) via the Cisco Trust agent is also
included.
The new offering can be managed at an enterprise level through
McAfee’s ePolicy Orchestrator or ProtectionPilot tools in a single console
interface that permits deployment, reporting and policy management.
“The solution provides users with a focused approach to system
protection through the introduction of a proactive integrated solution
under one management console, eliminating the need for hard to manage
point solutions,” Raj
Dhingra, vice president of corporate and product marketing at Network
Associates, said in a statement.
McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.0i is available in beta, with the final release expected to ship in Q3 2004.
