McAfee readies virus-scanning appliances

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2691092,00.html

By Dennis Fisher, eWEEK
February 28, 2001 3:37 PM ET

Hoping to expand on its lead in the corporate anti-virus market,
McAfee next month will unveil what it is calling the first line of
dedicated virus-scanning appliances.

The Linux-based machines, known as WebShield ASaP, will sit at the
edge of a customer's network and do nothing but scan incoming and
outgoing packets for viruses, thus decreasing the load on network
servers that typically perform this task.

"Anti-virus is a very CPU-intensive job," said Zach Nelson, chief
strategy officer at Network Associates Inc., the Santa Clara, Calif.,
parent company of McAfee. "In a big company, it can really slow down
the network because it has to open each packet, scrutinize it and
compare it against a database."

The WebShield appliance, which will be capable of scanning as many as
75,000 e-mails an hour, is in beta tests now and is scheduled to
launch at the end of March.

The line will consist of three machines: an Intel Corp. Celeron-based
model, a Pentium III model and a high-end box with dual Pentium III
processors.

First real hardware foray

Once the appliance is installed, an administrator will be able to go
to the McAfee Web site and set the policies and configuration for the
box. The Secure Beat software loaded on WebShield ASaP will then
contact the site once a minute to check for virus up-dates, Nelson
said.

The appliance represents something of a departure for Network
Associates, which has traditionally concentrated strictly on software.
Although the company currently sells the WebShield E-ppliance
pre-loaded with anti-virus software, Nelson said WebShield ASaP is
Network Associates' first real foray into the hardware business.

The main difference is that the new machines will be monitored around
the clock by McAfee's Network Operations Center.

The company decided to go with Linux as opposed to Windows so that it
could strip out all of the superfluous portions of the OS and
fine-tune it for the anti-virus and security functions, company
officials said.

McAfee, which has yet to announce pricing for the new machines, is
targeting WebShield ASaP at the midsize to large enterprise and
service-provider markets.

The appliances will have multi-domain and multi-client support as well
as content-filtering capabilities.

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