McAfee bolstered security portfolio in 2007

The growing importance of data - personal or corporate - to cyber criminals played a big role in McAfee Inc.'s decision to bolster its security portfolio in 2007, according to its chief security evangelist Andrew Berkuta. Last year's acquisitions now enable the company to offer a comprehensive set of security and encryption solutions to customers. "Last year was the culmination of hearing customers, acting, enquiring and making the right strategic acquisitions to address ," Berkuta says. "And it's the new layer of the cake - the top layer - which is data." Berkuta explains that a couple of years ago cyber criminals shifted their focus away from the glory of security breaches to the monetization of the data on the networks they were hacking. "The big play was gathering and getting data," he says, noting that data became a commodity that cyber criminals could sell. To address the growing concern from customers about data loss, McAfee made two key acquisitions last year: Data Loss Prevention and SafeBoot. Technologies from both companies rounds out McAfee's security portfolio by adding in the encryption component to its security management hardware and software solutions. McAfee can now offer corporate data protection by securing the multiple network entry points such as PCs, laptops and mobile devices. While it may seem like a no-brainer to protect corporate information on the network, the problem was that encryption was simply cost prohibitive in previous years. Organizations such as the US Department of Defense and the Department of National Defence here had mandated encryption, but the risk wasn't high enough for the commercial sector. "Is high enough that we have to budget for this, plan this and deploy this?" Berkuta says of the questions many organizations asked themselves. "The technology may have been out there. wasn't on people's radar because it wasn't a risk that was high." With high profile security leaks recently in a number of sectors from the financial to the retail, the need to implement more stringent encryption measures became much more apparent. The risk threshold is reached and organizations make security changes. McAfee heard this from customers as well, and it had to act to bring this service into its broader security portfolio. A breach in the US at Winners and HomeSense owner TJX Companies Inc. affected Canadian credit card holders. CIBC was also the victim of a security breach after the company lost a file containing customer data. Berkuta recognizes the evolving nature of security threats and that new attack mechanisms are introduced all the time, but this won't force McAfee to react hastily. Adding more capabilities through an acquisition might not be the thing to do, he says, noting that the company has a good baseline of technology. "We're flushing out a good framework. As they say in the housing market, we have good bones," he tells Network Letter. While the company won't rule out future acquisitions, McAfee is comfortable with its current stable of solutions that address all aspects of enterprise network security and allow security managers to "see" things in a holistic way. "I think we're pacing ourselves. We have the right pieces in place, the right players in play, the right management an excellent executive team that has a strong vision and strategy defined," he says.

McAfee bolstered security portfolio in 2007

News | April 15, 2008

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