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Strategy for future of business security

McAfee has announced its strategy for building upon Security Connected, the framework in which security products and services work together to safeguard businesses with better protection from new types of attacks. McAfee will expand its current broad portfolio through strategic acquisitions, development projects and key partnerships to deliver more integrated solutions and comprehensive protection across mobile devices, endpoints, servers, and network through an extensible framework.

When organisations deploy many separate technologies, gaps are created which lead to breaches and compliance violations and allows attacks to happen. Last year, attacks such as Flame and Shamoon exposed vulnerabilities in the point security product approach. Additionally, the biggest day-to-day cost driver for organisations is operations including managing multiple security consoles, numerous policies and rules, and constant updates. To tackle these inefficient silos, Security Connected delivers business efficiency, predictability and actionable information.

“Businesses are looking for integrated security solutions with built in intelligence and policies,” said Chris Christiansen, program vice president, Security Products and Services group at IDC. “The changes in business today will require the move from simply securing components, to understanding and measuring the security of a business system as a whole.”

“Security is now a boardroom level discussion,” said Michael Fey, chief technology officer at McAfee. “The stakes are high, and businesses require a new model that gives them a comprehensive picture of their entire IT infrastructure. The industry has been built on a historical thought process that will not support the demands of the future. We must move to having a real-time understanding and response capability if we are to meet the needs of the future.”

McAfee Security Connected brings network and endpoint together through an extensible framework, centralised management and integrated with global threat intelligence delivers visibility across all threat vectors. At the core of McAfee Security Connected are the principles of integrated solutions, built-in intelligence, and advanced management offered with an extensible architecture for partners.

Integrated management

* McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator – with over a decade of development, it is widely acknowledged as the most advanced and scalable security management software in the industry. McAfee has innovated and changed the market with the first enterprise management architecture, scaling to over 250 000 nodes from a single server, and running on over 60 million endpoints worldwide.

* McAfee Enterprise Security Manager – enables business with true, real-time situational awareness and the speed and scale required to identify critical threats, respond intelligently, and ensure continuous compliance monitoring. McAfee Enterprise Security Manager is built for big security data – featuring a specialised security information management back-end that delivers unsurpassed speed, intelligence and scalability.

Intelligent solutions

* McAfee Network Security will continue to be an important focus within Security Connected. McAfee offers IPS, next generation firewall, DLP, Web and network e-mail security with an optimised management platform for the world’s most comprehensive network defence.

* McAfee Endpoint Security has redefined device security with integrated system security that includes virtualisation security, mobile protection, endpoint e-mail security, whitelisting technology and Web safety, and protection below the OS to allow businesses to guard devices against the latest threats with fewer IT resources.

* McAfee Global Threat Intelligence (GTI) monitors the behaviour of millions of websites globally and associated domain assets (e-mail servers, file servers, etc.) to identify anomalous and potentially dangerous behaviour. By establishing and tracking a reputation score for these millions of sites, McAfee GTI can identify new cyber-threats as they occur and empower McAfee endpoint, network, and gateway products to protect users from new and emerging threats.

* Hardware-Enhanced Security protects businesses from emerging stealthy and targeted attacks that take place below the operating system. Through innovation with Intel, McAfee Deep Defender and McAfee ePO Deep Command extend client security beyond the operating system.

Open architecture

McAfee has opened up its systems to connect with other vendors and has created a network of more than 150 partners integrating with the McAfee Security Connected framework. The McAfee Security Innovation Alliance is a programme that allows businesses to evolve their solutions to meet changing needs with minimal cost and disruption. The partner ecosystem extends McAfee’s security and compliance infrastructure into the areas that businesses care about most, from forensics to application security to power management.

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