Question: What does John Walsh, host of America’s Most Wanted crime-fighting television program have to do with an anti-malware software suite?
Answer: They are both fighting crime. Up until now, Walsh, who is also co-founder of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, focused on criminals in the physical world. Now, by teaming up with CA, (NASDAQ: CA) he is going after cybercriminals.
Walsh will become the public face for CA’s Internet Security products and education program, which earlier this week unveiled the latest version of CA’s consumer anti-malware product, the Internet Security Suite Plus 2009.
“CA looks forward to working with John Walsh to promote consumer awareness and keep predators and fraudsters away from our children and families,” Brian Grayek, vice president of product management for CA’s Internet Security Business Unit, told InternetNews.com by e-mail.
The move is not as odd as it appears. “CA targets this primarily to consumers, not businesses, and in that context, using John Walsh as a spokesperson isn’t so odd,” noted Jonathan Penn, vice president at analyst firm Forrester Research.
“He’s well recognized by the public as a trusty individual.”
CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2009 covers up to five PCs with one license, and Grayek said it has better parental controls than offerings from the two giants in consumer anti-malware – Symantec and McAfee.
It includes a personal firewall, antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-spam and anti-phishing capabilities. It also helps users back up and restore data and PC settings or transfer them to a new PC.
CA’s suite also has an automatic full screen gaming/movie mode, which prevents pop-ups and notifications when the computer is viewing anything in full screen mode, Grayek said. He also claimed CA is the only major consumer security product to include support for the new Domain Key Internet Mail (DKIM) standard.
DKIM uses cryptographic authentication to validate the domain from which a message is being received, thus keeping out spam and helping prevent phishing attacks.
Silent running
In addition, CA has added what it calls silent protection, a feature that automatically analyzes a program’s behavior and determines whether that program should be allowed or denied access to the user’s computer.
CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2009 automatically detects updates and alerts users, and customers will get free upgrades, daily protection updates and 24 x 7 online technical support.
Finally, CA offers buyers of the Internet Security Suite Plus 2009 a total of up to $10,000 in identity theft coverage and coverage against damage to their computers caused by a computer virus.
The identity theft coverage safeguards data on one PC with Mobile Lifeline software, with identity theft protection worth up to $5,000 if the customer’s identity is compromised.
If a virus infection takes out up to five PCs after CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2009 is properly installed, the customer is eligible for a total of up to $5,000 in technical service and/or hardware or replacement.
CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2009 runs on Windows 2000 Professional with SP4+Update Rollup 1, Windows XP and Windows XP Media Center Edition with SP2, and Windows Vista. The product is priced at $79.99 for one year’s subscription to cover up to five PCs.
