McAfee puts in bid to enter new security race

Stan Beer
Monday, 19 June 2006 10:18

Business IT - Security

The release of Microsoft's first major consumer security offering, Windows Live Onecare last month set the cat among the pigeons as far as anti-virus vendors are concerned. First anti-virus leader Symantec Corp launched a counter-attack with the announcement of a new consumer PC security service called Norton 360. Now number two player McAfee has re-entered the race with the beta releases of two new all singing and dancing next generation security suites.

It seems strange that it took the entry of Microsoft into the consumer security space to prod the security vendors into action, given that there was already competition between vendors. However, the new McAfee packages Total Protection and Virus Scan Plus purport to raise the bar to a new level, offering added functionality to compete with Onecare's automated PC tuneups, backups and free phone and online customer support.

New features on offer from the McAfee packages include the detection of phishing and identity theft scams and anti-rootkit functions, as well as a function to protect against visitations to risky websites. Also on offer is the capability to cover PCs on a home or Wi-Fi network.

Given that most of the threats and needs being addressed by both McAfee and Symantec in their new product ranges have been around for quite some time, it is perhaps surprising that it took Microsoft's entry into the market to get the security vendors into gear. Phishing scams and rootkit malware masking software have been with us for years, as have home and Wi-Fi networks. It seems sad that it took a serious competitive threat to force the two largest security vendors to finally provide the sort of protection that users have needed all along.