Antivirus PC software

Attracting bugs, viruses, hackers and spam is all part and parcel of using a PC on the internet but there are a few things you can do to stave off all of these unwanted pests. Using the best antivirus systems is the only way to ensure you don’t suffer from any time consuming and expensive problems and you can purchase such brilliance online.

It is nearly impossible to use the internet and not fall foul of some sort of problem whether it be a spyware system that tracks which websites you visit or a phishing scam that takes all of your personal information. With PC protection software the risks of viruses and infections that live solely to obliterate your hard drive will be eliminated and purchasing such software is not tricky.

Everyone can and everyone should! From businesses through to personal users who only use their PC for a few hours every week. The more regularly you use a computer the more likely you will pick up a problem. Don’t make the often expensive mistake of thinking you don’t need antivirus software because you rarely surf the internet, because you do! Viruses by nature worm their way into places where they are not welcome and computer bugs are no different. 

If you, like so many of us, use a PC on the internet but you avoid anything that sounds too technical then don’t panic as protecting your PC from viruses is about as simple as it gets. Complete an online search for a company that offers the best antivirus systems. If you are unsure about what you need then use our antivirus comparison table.

Guest Article by Louise Goldstein

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 

McAfee, a world leader in computer security, has announced the release of McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.5 software to advance its protection to businesses and governments.

The drive to keep protection to maintain cybersecurity in some of the most vital areas of national and business security, comes as McAfee Avert Labs releases data showing attacks on businesses increases 500% over the last year.

On top of this, McAfee’s research also indicates that some large company or enterprise networks can use as many as 200 different security providers to try to keep their computers secure. This naturally dilutes the power of any of these providers to keep a company network secure, as well as costing the business significant amounts of money.

The McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.5 software is therefore an answer to some of the main problems of business and its cybersecurity today.

McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator satisfied four main elements that McAfee believed all organisations should take into account when securing their network, including an integrated defence and real-time threat intelligence with in-the-cloud protection.

McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator has a number of additional highlights to ensure it can maintain the security of even the largest networks, for example:

• Improved enterprise scalability: new architecture is multi-layered, featuring: load balancing, failover support, with awareness of multiple servers to improve policy management and reporting.
• Enhanced Web-based, customizable interface: streamlined navigation and reporting enhancements provide a visibility of the organization’s security. A more powerful and intuitive interface means end-to-end visibility across the whole security environment
• Improved workflow and automation framework: this helps to minimize vulnerabilities and save administrator time. Automated protection is based on user profiles instead of just the system or device. As well as this a new help desk ticketing integration with HP OpenView and BMC Remedy helps to automate any workflow tasks.

Matt Fairbanks, senior vice president of product and solution marketing at McAfee, said: “IT organizations want to consolidate and standardize on a strategic security partner to deliver the highest protection levels while driving down cost. With McAfee’s unmatched network and systems security portfolio, powerful compliance technologies, real-time Global Threat Intelligence, and a security management platform based on ePolicy Orchestrator, McAfee is transforming the way businesses approach security.”

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Internet and computer security giant McAfee has outlined details of a Security-as-a-Service strategy to deliver security to businesses large or small as a service in the cloud.

McAfee’s plan to harness the cloud in such a way that means that McAfee can provide an affective and functional portfolio of Security-as-a-Service products to companies and enterprises large or small. These are more cost efficient as they are a single vendor solution to security concerns, which is particularly attractive in this time of economic downturn.

The development of this type of security service has been done in line with growing customer demand. McAfee are reacting to the evidence that shows that IT departments are losing numbers and being stretched to their limits; on top of this Gartner has claimed that even though security risks are on the increase, it looks as though worldwide IT spending will decline at the end of the year 2009.

A benefit of McAfee’s development of security products as a service in the cloud, is that the delivery option of one of the most important aspects of computer usage is flexible. Marc Olesen, SVP and General Manager of McAfee Software-as-a-Service said: “Our customers have told us they want flexibility in their delivery options. It is clear that IT resources need to focus on initiatives that are business critical, while consolidating vendors.”

McAfee’s Security-as-a-Service products works by using combined global threat intelligence from Artemis, TrustedSource and SiteAdvisor, and accumulates millions of data to compile real-time profiles of any suspicious activity. Deviations of the behavior can also be looked out for, ensuring a safeguard against rapidly developing threats. The products deliver web and e-mail protection, including malware, viruses and phishing attacks. All this is done through McAfee’s harnessing of the cloud to provide a unique cloud based management console.

The McAfee Security-as-a-Service technology offers a wide variety in its portfolio, including; McAfee Total Protection Service; McAfee Total Protection Service Extended; McAfee Web Protection Service; and McAfee Vulnerability Assessment.

The plans to harness the cloud in line with developing the Security-as-a-Service provision is there to meet market and customer demands as the ever present need for internet security increases.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Despite recessionary times, McAfee has lodged record results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2009.

Revenues increased 18% to $469 million year-over-year and 5% quarter-over-quarter. There was a record $1.31 billion of deferred income which represented a 20% year-over-year increase and a quarter-over-quarter 3% increase.

Currency fluctuations hit the revenue line to the tune of $22 million. Respectively, GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $0.18 and $0.60, respectively. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share reached a record $0.60, an increase of 15% year-over-year and 5%. quarter-over-quarter

Dave DeWalt, the president and chief executive of McAfee, said about the results:
“For the second quarter of 2009, we are proud to report quarterly records in revenue, deferred revenue, non-GAAP operating income, and non-GAAP net income. Our continued market share gains prove customers and partners choose McAfee for security leadership.”

He continued:
“With our pending acquisition of MX Logic, McAfee expects to strengthen our position as an innovative leader in the security Software-as-a-Service segment with one of the most diverse portfolios in the industry. We expect to bring customers enhanced cloud based email and Web security with archiving in a rapidly growing segment. This combination will give customers greater access to critical messaging SaaS offerings and an expanded network of partners across the world.”

McAfee serves both the business and consumer sectors. In the business sector, revenue grew 21% year-over-year to a record $291 million in the second quarter of 2009. In the consumer sector, revenue grew 13% year-over-year to a record $177 million in the second quarter of 2009. And McAfee signed, or extended 24 agreements and launched 63 new or enhanced online partnerships. This brought the total to over 200 brand name partners worldwide.

When they announced results, McAfee recapped the highlights of the period:

• completed the acquisition of privately owned Solidcore Systems, offering first end-to-end compliance solution that includes dynamic whitelisting and application trust technology, antivirus, antispyware, host intrusion prevention, policy auditing and firewall technologies;
• unveiled McAfee Family Protection, a new software program that can protect a child from online dangers, such as viewing inappropriate content, participating in cyberbullying and engaging in risky interactions on social networking sites;
• released McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.5 software to help secure organizations from a vast and ever-growing threat landscape;
• released Total Protection Service, the industry’s SaaS solution offering always on guard protection without additional investment in on-premise infrastructure;
• upgraded its enterprise firewall products with next generation capabilities that help customers increase network security and lower their compliance and operational costs in both physical and virtual network environments;
• released McAfee Total Protection for Internet Gateways. One purchase gets Web, mail and network DLP protection to be deployed on McAfee appliances, providing advanced threat protection with acquisition cost savings of 50%;
• research firm Gartner has placed McAfee in the leaders quadrant in its Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms. In addition, McAfee was named a leader in two reports from Forrester Research "The Forrester Wave: Web Filtering, Q2 2009" and "The Forrester Wave: Email Filtering, Q2 2009."

At the same time as the results, McAfee announced the acquisition of the privately owned MX Logic for $140 million with an additional $30 million contingent upon achieving certain performance milestones.

MX Logic is the world’s leading independent SaaS provider of on-demand email, Web security and archiving solutions with nearly 40,000 customers and four million end users.

McAfee also announced that its expects third quarter net revenues of $475 million to $495 million.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

A possible theft of a White House computer hard drive from the time of the Bill Clinton Presidency has proved that it’s not only viruses that get the blame for the current lack of digital security.

Light fingered thieves still have a role to play when it comes to computer data theft, although U.S. Government officials are not 100% certain that it’s a theft, saying that it might have been misplaced instead.

Nonetheless, the FBI fear the worse and suspect that the hard drive, which contains a terabyte of data, was stolen from a National Archives record centre.

The hard drive includes thousands, if not millions of individual pieces of data computerised at the time of the Clinton administration. This, say the authorities, includes members of the then Vice President Al Gore’s family, security information and personal information on White House workers and visitors.

Red-faced officials from The National Archives and Records Administration said that they took the loss very seriously indeed, but stressed that they were not certain how much information had been stolen, or how revealing it was. They said that all the effected parties, including the Clintons and the Homeland Security Department, had been notified of the loss.

The officials were perplexed as to how such a thing could have happened at the highly secure archive in Maryland, although they admitted that the hard drive had been signed out of the storage area and that it had been taken to a work space where it was accessible by a number of staff and archivists.

For once, viruses are not to blame.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

It’s comforting to think whilst your aircraft is in a stacking pattern over an international airport awaiting final approach, there’s a bunch of geeks out there trying to hack into air traffic control computers.

The durability of the U.K. air traffic control systems when it comes to fighting off hackers has been questioned on quite a few occasions, but it seems that the U.S. are a little more forthcoming when it comes to dishing out information on the threats involved.

A recent U.S. report given to The Federal Aviation Administration has highlighted critical vulnerabilities in the software of their systems and brought to light a large number of “cyber incidents” which could not be properly explained, or resolved.

The report was complied by top accountants KPMG and the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation. It concluded that there were a total of 763 high risk security issues in key web servers. There were also a further 3,000 other security issues, including incorrectly patched software, vulnerable software sections and web applications that had not been correctly configured.

What this translates to is a major risk of authorised access by hackers into FAA systems that control vital data and also air traffic control systems. The engineers behind the report actually used their findings to demonstrate the lax security by launching their own attack and gaining access to the Traffic Control Management System, a control tower and a weather system.

Hackers have hit the FAA systems a number of times, one of the worst coming in 2008 when they targeted the domain controllers which could have disrupted the ATC mission support network.

The FAA of course is not alone in being accused of a relaxed attitude to cyber attacks. President Obama has pledged a general review and improvement across many U.S. government departments as doubts were voiced over their ability to withstand hackers.

The report came up with a number of key recommendations, including enhancing intrusion detection systems, tightening up security on web applications and improving the implementation of software patches.

Accepting the main thrust of the report, the FAA did say in mitigation that the air-control systems are not connected to either the administration systems (where the main vulnerabilities are found), or the internet.

Guest Article by Neil Camp