Top computer security company McAfee has announced it has been chosen to protect the state of New York against cyber criminals.

McAfee anti-virus products will be used to provide ‘endpoint’ security for over 200,000 servers, desktops and laptops across agencies at counties across the state.

It is a multi-year, multimillion dollar enterprise license agreement which includes McAfee Total Protection for Endpoint Advanced and McAfee Total Protection for Data. McAfee say that it will offer New York improved security posture and increased mobility, at a total cost of ownership (TCO) savings of approximately 75% over previous purchases.

Mike Carpenter, senior vice president of public sector for McAfee, said: “With cybercrime on the rise, the need to protect sensitive data is of great concern for federal, state and local government organizations. We are privileged to fill the role of trusted security advisor to New York, a state that is dedicated to the improvement of its security posture through proactive solutions.”

Dr Melodie Mayberry-Stewart, New York state chief information officer and director of the office for technology, said: “During these fiscally challenges times, cost savings must be a focal point with every transaction. McAfee solutions have enabled the State of New York to realize unprecedented cost savings and meet our unique security suite needs of higher levels of protection across the state enterprise.”

The deal comes after a policy from the New York State Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination which required all mobile endpoints to have encryption. As the McAfee Total Protection for Data product includes an encryption tool, this enabled New York to meet their policy directive, protecting sensitive data on the move.

McAfee Total Protection for Endpoint Advanced is an end-to-end solution providing companies and organizations with a simplified and comprehensive threat protection package.

McAfee Total Protection for Data offers encryption, authentication, data loss prevention, and policy-driven security solutions, enabling companies and organizations to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information.

Both packages link with McAfee’s single-console management solution, ePolicy Orchestrator, enabling intelligent security and compliance optimization.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

McAfee reports that the fear of swine flu has caused an online epidemic with spammers going into overdrive by trying to trick people to open their emails.

Some 5% of email traffic now contains the words swine flu and that means billions of emails each day. McAfee Avert Labs say they have seen between 80 billion and 100 billion spam messages each day over the last month. And whereas the words swine flu rarely featured a week ago, now the words are increasingly occurring. The spam emails are being sent with infected viruses which once opened, infect the user’s computer.

Although the spam is coming from all over the world, the majority is originating from Brazil, Germany and Italy. Much is coming from computers that have already been compromised by malware and act as zombies within a botnet of infected machines.

Furthermore, websites using the words swine and flu are being registered at an increasing rate, worrying McAfee experts that people will be attracted to websites that trick them into downloading such things as a video codec (usually used to view a movie). But rather than a proper viewing device, it turns into a piece of malware that takes control of the computer.

McAfee are advising all those that require information about the swine flu situation, should go to a reputable site such as the World Health Organisation, and avoid emails, instant messages and social network sites that urge you to click a link to find out more.

For anyone who suspects they might have been successfully targeted, they can always get advice from the free McAfee Cybercrime Response Unit.

McAfee have warned against particular emails which might have the following in their subject lines:

Salma Hayek caught swine flu!
Madonna caught swine flu!
First US swine flu victims!
US swine flu statistics
Swine flu worldwide!
Swine flu in Hollywood!
Swine flu in USA.

Guest Article by Neil Camp