The new version is the first release of the software since Symantec acquired it when it bought Platform Logic Inc last December. Director of product management Chirantan Desai said the time has been spent making improvements and introducing compatibility with other Symantec products.
CSP is designed to provide the last line of defense, to be complementary to, and a failover for, other host security products such as antivirus and firewall.
It uses behavior-based attack detection techniques, which basically means it is told or learns what system calls approved applications are allowed to make, and blocks or alerts on everything else, according to the company.
It also features memory protection, designed to prevent buffer overflow attacks by prevention software from writing instructions to areas of memory reserved for data, according to Desai.
The software, as its name suggests, is not designed for blanket deployment like antivirus. Rather, it is designed for critical systems that have well-defined functionality.
The move means Symantec can now better compete against the likes of McAfee and Cisco Systems, along with a host of other host IPS vendors.
The software can be licensed for Windows clients starting at $69. The server version, which can run on Linux and Solaris, starts at $995.
