SurfControl announced plans to join the growing enterprise
anti-spyware market early next month when it starts shipping software to
businesses trying to keep unwanted programs off corporate desktops.
The Scotts Valley, Calif.-based company, a provider of messaging
security services that operates a global network of 19 centers to analyze
e-mail traffic to identify scams, spam, viruses and other types of malicious
content, said SurfControl Enterprise Threat Shield will thwart spyware and
malware threats at the corporate level.
“Our unified approach to Internet security is essential for complete
protection as threats now blend multiple methods of attack and propagation
to render conventional security measures obsolete. With the addition of
Enterprise Threat Shield, we are leveraging our strong legacy in Web and
e-mail filtering to bring a true enterprise-class spyware solution to
customers,” Steve Purdham, SurfControl’s CEO, said.
Microsoft, McAfee and Trend Micro and Symantec all have released similar
products in recent months.
The Enterprise Threat Shield will fit into vendor’s Enterprise Protection
Suite and will cost $30 per user annually in deployments of 100 users. The price drops to $17 per user annually for a 1,000-user installation, John Murphy, SurControl’s vice president of marketing, said.
The software is designed to block malware at the enterprise
administration level and act at a gateway to detect and remove spyware
before it has a chance to install itself on desktop clients, Jim Murphy,
product marketing manager at SurfControl, said.
The announcement comes one month after SurfControl acquired the
enterprise spyware and extended threat protection technology from Apreo. The
$6.8 million deal for Apreo, an innovator of technologies that control file
and application distribution to secure enterprise networks, played a vital
role in the upcoming release.
“Today we sit at the forefront of preventing Internet threats from
impacting customers. SurfControl has evolved as an Internet security
company, helping businesses solve the security problems they face today
while preparing them for the challenges we see on the horizon,”
Purdham said.
SurfControl Enterprise Threat Shield enables enterprises and resellers to
prevent the introduction of spyware to corporate desktops. The software
can be custom-programmed to adapt and respond to new
threats on the fly, according to Jim Murphy.
The Enterprise Threat Shield has four layers of scanning including
WriteWatch, which monitors file activity in real-time, stopping malicious files
before they infect users’ machines. It also includes centralized deployment
and reporting; comprehensive and customizable databases and flexible policy
administration.
