McAfee enhances spyware protection

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McAfee this week plans to announce an add-on for its enterprise antivirus products to offer increased protection against spyware.

Users of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise Edition versions 7.1 or 8.0i next month will be able to purchase a new McAfee Anti-Spyware Enterprise Edition Module for $15 per desktop. It will better protect their systems against spyware, says John Bedrick, group marketing manager at McAfee, in Santa Clara, California.

The spyware module is offered in addition to the protection that McAfee already offers in VirusScan Enterprise Edition 8.0i, the latest version of its antivirus product released in August. Protection in that product is limited to the top 200 types of spyware that represent real security threats, Bedrick says.

"Essentially, if it is not capturing information to be sent out or retrieved [by a hacker], or if it is not allowing people to take control of the computer, it is not covered in 8.0i," Bedrick says. "This add-on program is specifically for those customers who want to move beyond the top-200 security threats and want to get rid of all the junk."

For example, the spyware module also cleans PCs of annoying adware that continually pops up ads on to users' machines, Bedrick says. Spyware includes everything from adware to malware-like Trojans and keyloggers.

McAfee plans to include the functionality of the spyware module in a future version of VirusScan Enterprise Edition, possibly by the end of next year, Bedrick says.

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McAfee is not alone in targeting spyware. Computer Associates International in August acquired antispyware software vendor PestPatrol and last week announced the availability of eTrust PestPatrol Anti-Spyware r5, which it acquired through the buyout.

Other antivirus vendors, including F-Secure, Trend Micro, and Symantec, also are taking on spyware. Microsoft has said it plans to address the problem of spyware, though it has not provided many details.

Aside from the security risk, spyware can slow down computer performance significantly. It is an increasing burden on IT departments, eating up expensive help desk time, analysts and users say.

"It is probably 40 percent of our help desk calls," says Thomas Smith, manager of desktop engineering at a large Houston-based company. "Spyware is a terrible thing. It is the worst thing out there right now."

Smith manages about 5000 Windows desktops. In several cases a PC required a new Windows installation because of spyware, he says. The company uses McAfee's VirusScan and is in the process of upgrading to version 8.0i with the included spyware protection, Smith says.

Without integrated suites of virus and spyware protection available, many organizations have adopted personal spyware programs such as the free Spybot Search & Destroy and AdAware from LavaSoft, says David Friedlander, a senior analyst at Forrester Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"Certainly there is demand for McAfee, Symantec, CA to offer antispyware products for enterprise use," Friedlander says. "As antispyware features get integrated in the antivirus suites, organizations will adopt those in place of the consumer and the free scanning tools."

The Anti-Spyware Enterprise Edition Module plugs in to the VirusScan Enterprise Edition 7.1 and 8.0i products and can be installed remotely using McAfee's ePolicy Orchestrator and ProtectionPilot management tools. The product is due out in the second half of December.

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