December 4, 2024
Subscribe RSS Feed

FireEye Extends Threat Prevention Platform to SMBs

Posted on December 10, 2013 by in Security

FireEye, the recently-gone-public provider of threat protection solutions, has made its flagship threat prevention platform available for small and midsize businesses (SMBs).

The platform, dubbed “Oculus” by FireEye, is a real time, continuous threat protection platform that helps organizations protect intellectual property and data. Oculus for SMB combines technology, services, and threat expertise in a solution specially tailored to small and midsized businesses, the company said.

FireEye for SMBs

According to Verizon’s 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report, of the 621 confirmed data breaches examined, nearly half occurred at companies with fewer than 1,000 employees, including 193 incidents at organizations with fewer than 100 workers. These stats clearly show that attackers are targeting smaller businesses that often lack advanced IT security protections that larger enterprises tend to have in place.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, SMBs represent 99 percent of U.S. businesses, and according to research firm IDC, SMB spending on security technology is predicted to top $ 5.6 billion in 2015.

Oculus for SMB leverages FireEye’s advanced threat prevention platforms for Web, email, and mobile, and includes:

• Web threat protection: With the FireEye NX series platform, SMBs can stop Web-based attacks often missed by next-generation firewalls (NGFW), IPS, AV, and Web gateways. The NX series protects against zero-day Web exploits and multi-protocol callbacks to keep sensitive data and systems safe.

• Email threat protection: SMBs can leverage cloud-based or the on-premise EX series platform to protect against today’s advanced email attacks.

• Mobile threat protection: SMBs can leverage a cloud-based platform to address threats targeting mobile devices and help ensure that mobile apps are safe to use.

Oculus for SMB also provides Continuous Monitoring to help ensure that constrained security resources do not hinder an organization’s ability to counter targeted threats. Capabilities include:

• Continuous Monitoring: FireEye threat intelligence augments customer IT teams to proactively recognize advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks.

• Cybercon Reports: Vertical-specific threat information provides a view of the landscape so SMBs are better prepared to manage risk in their specific threat environment.

• Health Check: Alerts notify customers when their deployments fail remote health checks to ensure uninterrupted protection against advanced threats.

“FireEye is putting virtual machine technology into the hands of SMBs,” said Manish Gupta, FireEye senior vice president of products. “With the FireEye solution, SMBs obtain a simple and scalable security solution for advanced threats to safeguard corporate assets and drive down business risks. SMBs will enjoy unmatched advanced threat protection solution with continuous monitoring to augment their limited resources.”

Earlier this year, the security firm claimed that in over 95% of its prospective customer evaluations, it found incidents of advanced threats that were conducting malicious activities and that successfully evaded the prospective customers’ existing security infrastructure

The company was founded in 2005 by Ashar Aziz who served Chief Executive Officer until November 2012, and was followed by David DeWalt who previously served as president and CEO at McAfee from April 2007 until February 2011, after Intel’s surprise $ 7.68 billion acquisition of McAfee.

Managing Editor, SecurityWeek.

Previous Columns by Mike Lennon:

Tags:


SecurityWeek RSS Feed

We aren’t going to have 3 different versions of Windows

Posted on December 4, 2013 by in Uncategorized

Summary: A Microsoft official confirms the organization is planning to trim the quantity of different versions of Windows inside its portfolio.
Microsoft currently has three different versions of Windows running on mobile devices. But Microsoft is working to reduce that number, Julie Larson-Green, Executive Vice President of Devices and Studios, confirmed in an interview last week.
At present, Microsoft offer plain-old Windows for Intel-based PCs and tablets. There’s Windows RT for ARM-based PCs and tablets. And there’s the Windows Phone OS for Windows Phones.
I reported earlier this year that one of my sources said Microsoft is planning to whittle this down to two versions, though possibly not until the spring of 2015.
Speaking at the UBS Global Technology Conference last week, Larson-Green confirmed Microsoft plans to reduce the number of Windows variants it has in its portfolio. She told attendees during a question and answer session the following:
“We have the Windows Phone OS. We have Windows RT and we have full Windows. We’re not going to have three. We do think there’s a world where there is a more mobile operating system that doesn’t have the risks to battery life, or the risks to security. But, it also comes at the cost of flexibility. So we believe in that vision and that direction and we’re continuing down that path.”
Larson-Green said Windows RT was Microsoft’s “first go” at creating a turnkey, closed system, similar to iOS for the iPad. Like iOS, Windows RT isn’t as flexible, she acknowledged, but it’s more seamless and simplified.
“I think we didn’t differentiate the devices (Surface RT vs. Surface Pro) well enough. They looked similar. Using them is similar. It just didn’t do everything that you expected Windows to do. So there’s been a lot of talk about it should have been a rebranding. We should not have called it Windows. How should we have made it more differentiated? I think over time you’ll see us continue to differentiate it more,” she said.
As I noted back in October, Microsoft seems to be thinking about creating some kind of hybrid OS that will bring closer together Windows RT and the Windows Phone OS. And at least according to one of my sources, it’s more likely that the Windows Phone OS core is what Microsoft will use as the starting point, rather than Windows RT. If Microsoft is pursuing this path, there might just be full Windows and the new hybrid ARM-targeted variant of Windows in just over a year.
Larson-Green dropped a couple of other interesting tidbits during her UBS interview on November 21. She hinted that Microsoft is working towards a future where users may carry multiple kinds of phones or portable devices of some kind. she said that there could be a time when users have “three or four” phone-like devices they’ll be able to switch between, using the one best suited to a particular scenario.
I have that six-inch one (presumably the Nokia 1520 or a device like it),” she said, “and when you’re traveling on the train and you’re using public transit so you can see more and do more, and then when you’re out in the evening and you only have your suit, or your evening dress, you have a small one that slips in your pocket. You can buy more than one.”
Microsoft is known to be working on wearable technology projects of various kinds, with devices sporting different kinds of sensors.

The Windows Mobile Strategy For Microsoft Office 2013

Posted on February 2, 2013 by in Blog

Is Microsoft Office 2013 Working

Microsoft is pinching CIOs by not providing an easy way to run the just released Microsoft Office 2013 except on Windows RT, the operating system for its Surface tablets. With little cross-platform integration, Microsoft is creating an opening for vendors that have a clearer path for a complete mobile workflow.Outlook is the killer app for Microsoft, but the company has not shown any interest in releasing it for Office on the Surface or any other mobile device, said Analyst Esteban Kolsky, Founder of ThinkJar. Instead, Microsoft makes the case for Office365 in the cloud. But so far it only has 20 to 30 percent of the functionality that a customer would get with the desktop version of Microsoft Office. See Sarah Perez’s article for her take on the latest from Office365.

Forrester Research Analyst Phil Karcher said to me in an email that Microsoft does have a complete suite of mobile apps for Windows RT and Windows Phone, but only has Lync and OneNote apps for iOS and Android devices. It has improved browser access to SharePoint 2013, which benefits users on Android and iOS. However, it does not have mobile versions of its core office productivity applications — Word, Excel, PowerPoint on iOS and Android. He sees it as a matter of time before Microsoft opens up more to other platforms.

But Karcher said that competitors have a mixed bag, too:

Google Drive has more editing functionality on Android devices than it does on iOS today. It only introduced editing capabilities for its iOS app in September, and to my understanding only supports docs, not spreadsheets or presentations. IBM Docs has native apps with comprehensive functionality for iOS and Android today, including collaborative document editing from those devices. But a major complaint from users in general is that they want compatibility with their documents formats. Both Google and Android have the advantage of native mobile apps on popular platforms and continue to present alternatives to Microsoft for office productivity in general. But any first mover advantage in mobile support I suspect may be short-lived.

Zoho Evangelist Raju Vegesna said similarly that Windows Phone’s poor market share is a main factor in how Office fares, especially as the desktop recedes in importance:

With Windows Phone share lingering at less than 5 percent and with no iOS and Android versions of Office, users will look for alternatives. Remember, mobile share is going to be more important than desktop marketshare moving forward. Countries like India have 10x more mobile users than desktop users.

I’d love to see Office365 become something important. That would be a shift. The issue for Office comes down to portability. I should be able to open any document, on any device and have an experience that makes the mobile workflow somewhat seamless.

But in truth, not one vendor has the mobile workflow working. It is still a mix of vendors, providing different tools in their various suites. IBM Dominos, for instance, integrates with IBM Traveler, its mobile software for pushing email to mobile devices. IBM Docs integrates OpenSocial, providing a clean web experience. But at least one IBM customer I talked to uses SAP Afaria to manage its mobile devices. That shows the mix that we will continue to see as customers seek out their own workflows for connecting employees and their mobile devices.

Original Page: http://t.co/hjRmxbHu

« Newer Entries