McAfee Inc today proposed a framework approach to enterprise security and brought out an upgraded product suite to support it, in a move it said should help companies develop an optimised security architecture which is characterised by the highest possible protection levels and the lowest possible risk and cost.
Releasing McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator version 4, the company said its revamped product set satisfies four key elements that are needed to optimise the security architecture.
These include layered protection and integrated defense across systems and networks, systems that help automate compliance, real-time threat intelligence backed by in-the-cloud detection and distribution services, and a security management platform that provides complete visibility into the end-to-end security landscape.
McAfee CEO David DeWalt said the threat landscape had undergone some major changes in the past year and that the 500% increase in malware meant enterprises needed a more elegant security architecture.
The ePolicy Orchestrator line had been completely reengineered in the past 12 months during which time a new architecture had been developed across the product suite, some new capability added, and the system fitted out with a new user interface.
Matt Fairbanks, Senior VP of Product & Solution Marketing explained that reengineering the product has helped drive up the scalability of the management system so that it could cope with handling the hundreds of thousands of endpoints some of its largest sites need to secure with the software.
The introduction of ePolicy Orchestrator multiple server awareness features and new agent handlers are intended to bring more deployment flexibility, so that updates and anti-virus engines can be pushed out to end points across the global, without having to deploy a local ePolicy Orchestrator server.
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McAfee ePO 4.5 also features load balancing and failover support.
In addition, a new graphical user interface and improved workflow and automation tools should increase the efficiency of security management procedures, Fairbanks said.
The systems should save administrator time by using a tagging capability to automatically add protection to discovered systems. Administrators can also develop security policies to automate protection based on user profiles rather than merely by system or device, which is especially important for encryption and/or URL filtering capabilities, the company said.
New help desk ticketing integration with HP OpenView and BMC Remedy also means more workflow tasks can be automated, which should make security a transparent part of IT operations.
