McAfee, Inc., Invention Harnesses Cloud and Community to Identify New Cyberthreats and Boost Protection
September 15 2010 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
McAfee Inc. (NYSE:MFE), the world’s largest dedicated digital
security company, today announced a McAfee Labs invention that
advances the state of the art in threat detection and protection by
harnessing the power of the cloud and McAfee security software
installed on millions of PCs.
“This new approach by McAfee Labs changes the way we identify
and create protection against new malicious software threats such
as viruses, worms and Trojan horses,” said Mike Gallagher, McAfee
Labs chief technology officer. “This is a fundamental shift in
cyberdefense.”
The newly invented technology is part of McAfee® Global Threat
Intelligence™ and provides McAfee with two major benefits in the
fight against the continuing onslaught of malicious software, or
malware:
1)
McAfee Labs researchers can now
proactively search for new cyberthreats by using the millions of
computers running McAfee software as discovery beacons. Researchers
can use the beacons to look for suspicious activity without
impacting system performance and report back through the cloud
where the intelligence is used in aggregate. Once suspicious
activity is identified, researchers isolate, investigate and
develop and deploy countermeasures if appropriate.
2)
McAfee Labs researchers can now
create more advanced countermeasures that go well beyond the
traditional malware fingerprints, raising the bar on cybercriminals
who continuously seek to circumvent security software. The new
technology allows McAfee Labs to broadly test the effectiveness of
advanced countermeasures, maximizing effectiveness and also
minimizing the chance of erroneous detections.
“With this new technology we are taking advantage of our global
presence and millions of PCs running McAfee to spot threats that
other security providers may not see,” said Jeff Green, senior vice
president of McAfee Labs. “McAfee Labs researchers can now do
granular prospecting for threats.”
Computer security software historically detects and blocks
malicious software using a database with signatures of known
threats. Researchers at security software makers traditionally
write these signatures based on malicious software collections that
are shared in the industry. The collections are made up of samples
submitted by customers or by external security experts.
“It is time to move beyond providing protection based on the
conveyor belt of malicious software samples shared among
cybersecurity companies,” said Green. “While samples are still
important, the industry has been too focused on samples and
creating signatures for the growing number of samples. It simply
doesn’t scale, the bad guys have won that battle.”
McAfee Labs has seen the amount of malware hit new record highs
each year over the past several years. In the first half of 2010
McAfee Labs saw, on average, more than 55,000 samples coming in
each day. Cybercriminals typically create many slightly different
variants of the same malicious programs in attempts to evade
detection by security software.
With the newly advanced McAfee Global Threat Intelligence
capabilities, McAfee Labs researchers no longer look purely at
samples, but investigate more in depth and provide countermeasures
based on information surrounding samples. This advanced detection
makes it much harder for cybercriminals to evade detection and
allows McAfee to protect against entire families of malicious
code.
For example, the expanded capability allowed McAfee Labs
researchers to identify, investigate and block many variants of
fake security software, or scareware, before any other computer
security provider. “Our priority is now driven by what malicious
code is actually out on the Internet and not by the industry’s
malware collections,” Gallagher said.
McAfee started using the enhanced McAfee Global Threat
Intelligence capability early this year. The benefits of the new
capabilities will become increasingly apparent to McAfee customers
as McAfee Labs ramps up use of the capabilities over the remainder
of 2010 and into 2011.
The expanded Global Threat Intelligence capabilities are part of
the McAfee Trust & Safety Initiative, a company-wide effort
that sets new industry standards in the areas of quality assurance,
technical innovation, support & services and community
awareness. More information on the Trust & Safety Initiative is
available online at: http://www.mcafee.com/trustandsafety
About McAfee Global Threat Intelligence
Created and refined by McAfee Labs, McAfee Global Threat
Intelligence is the most comprehensive cloud-based threat
intelligence in the market and serves as the next generation of
threat protection. Spanning the Internet, including millions of
sensors globally, and correlating data across all threat vectors –
file, web, email, and network, McAfee Global Threat Intelligence
delivers real-time intelligence about files, IP addresses, URLs,
web domains, images, email messages, network connections, and
applications. It protects against both known and emerging threats,
including malware outbreaks, zero-day exploits, and malicious
zombie senders generating spam and web attacks. McAfee Global
Threat Intelligence enables customers to mitigate security risk
through more comprehensive protection, reduce cost of incident
response and management overhead, and assess their security
posture.
About McAfee, Inc.
McAfee, Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is the
world's largest dedicated security technology company. McAfee
delivers proactive and proven solutions and services that help
secure systems, networks, and mobile devices around the world,
allowing users to safely connect to the Internet, browse and shop
the Web more securely. Backed by unrivaled McAfee Global Threat
Intelligence, McAfee creates innovative products that empower home
users, businesses, the public sector and service providers by
enabling them to prove compliance with regulations, protect data,
prevent disruptions, identify vulnerabilities, and continuously
monitor and improve their security. McAfee secures your digital
world. http://www.mcafee.com
NOTE: McAfee is a registered trademark or trademark of McAfee,
Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
Other marks may be claimed as the property of others. The product
plans, specifications and descriptions herein are provided for
information only and subject to change without notice, and are
provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied.
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