McAfee has just announced its latest Email and Web security Appliance, version 5.5, which is designed to protect small and midsized businesses against the latest email and web-borne threats, manage Web and email traffic and usage, and reduce system administration requirements. And all this in a single, integrated appliance.

The McAfee Email and Web security Appliance 5.5 has a number of new features and functionality.

First and foremost is Artemis and TrustedSource™ Technology Integration. This is the first time that this application will utilise links to global threat intelligence from its Artemis and TrustedSource technologies. This believes McAfee is the most precise and comprehensive threat intelligence system in the world.

Second up is Appliance Clustering with Load Balancing. This means that multiple appliances can be clustered to share scanning responsibilities for improved resiliency, scalability, and consolidated management and reporting.

Third on the list is Simplified Installation. Very important in reducing installation time and for improving overall user experience, auto-detect network settings provides an easy to use configuration wizard.

Fourth are new Content Policy Wizards. This facility simplifies the creation and set up of content policies through the new configuration wizards and advanced dictionaries simplify policy creation, which enables greater enforcement flexibility and reduces false positives and configuration errors.

Fifth is Integrated URL Filtering. The 5.5 release is available at no extra cost and includes more than 90 Web site categories providing granular web usage monitoring and policy enforcement. It also includes the McAfee Web Reporter package which allows simplified viewing of web utilization and trends.

Dave Macey, general manager of the Network Security business unit at McAfee said:
“In addition to their market leading security effectiveness, these appliances also provide customers with email and Web usage policy enforcement capabilities, compliance tools, informative dashboards and comprehensive reporting. McAfee’s combined intelligence capabilities add an essential layer of protection to guard against today’s most advanced threats and work by accumulating data from millions of sensors, creating a real-time profile of all suspicious activity and content, and then watching for deviations based upon expected behavior.”

Furthermore, the McAfee Email and Web security Appliance 5.5 provides, says McAfee, the highest level of protection with better than 99% spam detection accuracy.

It will be available globally late in 2009.

Guest Article by Neil Camp