Saving data from the unknown, McAfee shows how

LAS VEGAS, USA: Recently, cyber criminals wiped out the digital existence of Mat Honan, wired.com writer, after gaining access to his Apple ID account. He lost every data on his MacBook, iPad, and iPhone. And what gave the cyber baddies that access was his billing address and the last four digits of his credit card, according to an inflight magazine.

To think of, Honan should have been the last person on the earth to let his digital data hijacked by some faceless guys. A tech writer, well aware of the emerging online threats, and a common man, who wouldn't have anything more than his private family vacation photos or some personal documents categorised as confidential. But it just doesn't matter who you are when it comes to the fancy of cyber criminals. In the all pervasive online world, everyone is vulnerable, equally.

That precedes the fact that over 1.5 million new malwares have cropped up in the last quarter and there has been 76 per cent increase in cyber crimes due to the emergence of social media.

Rolling out frightening statistics at McAfee Focus 2012 in Las Vegas, McAfee co-president Michael DeCeasare said the needs of the cloud have undergone tremendous changes. That is only obvious with 58 per cent of servers and 70 per cent of data centres in the world being virtualized. What's more worrying is that 90 per cent of organisations are unaware of attacks, let alone the potential threat.

Proliferating ways to making the cyber world safe, McAfee has carved a long-term strategy to tackle cyber crimes. The testament to its commitment was Focus 2012 where McAafe showcased its prowess in handling new-age crimes."To move to cloud we have to have a higher level of expectations. Cloud is easy target,'' says DeCesare.

While McAfee's first generation security focused on finding and reactively fixing known threats, its next generation endpoint security protects businesses from both known and unknown threats. With thousands of new threats designed everyday, protecting devices, data and applications from the unknown is where companies need to focus.

''Implementing and managing security in complex IT environments that include virtual and physical computing, employee owned devices, servers, laptops and data centers is a full time job,'' said Ryan Finlay, IT Manager for Networking, Telecommunications, and Security at Reliant Medical Group.

According to an independent test by West Coast Labs, McAfee's Next Generation Endpoint Security successfully blocked 100 per cent of malware. The importance of such advanced protection was further emphasized by Gartner's Neil MacDonald, who stated, ''Context-aware and adaptive security will be the only way to securely support the dynamic business and IT infrastructure emerging during the next 10 years.''

When McAfee worldwide CTO Michael Fay demonstrated how hackers can hijack browser and wipe out data in banks, irrespective of operating systems, it mirrored the need to move beyond finding a solution to cyber attack and rather focusing on anticipating threats and cutting them in the bud. No device, however sophisticated, is immune to cyber attacks that are carried out with aggression by cyber criminals.

''The challenges of unknown sophisticated malware threats and McAfee's advanced approach gives us an easy way to provide comprehensive endpoint protection,'' said Ryan Finlay.

McAfee's roadmap for future has been laid on many critical factors including securing critical infrastructure, enabling a better user experience. There is a need to making transparent computing the norm with companies embracing cloud for everything right from employee details to vital business essential strategies.

"Level of security that goes into cloud is substantially higher than all other security applications," said Michael DeCesare.

With new possibilities come new perils. Technology has come a long way from ambitious adoption to outright adoption and solutions are not prepared for the change. "Every application will be rewritten in the next five years," said Michael Fay.

On the occasion, McAfee announced its threat intelligence programme that provides real-time situational awareness.

How does it work?

It identifies the source of suspicious behaviour
Shows active connections to the IP address of the suspicious source
Shows systems running processes with the malicious hash
Kills malicious processes on those hosts

McAfee's new Endpoint Security offerings include:

McAfee Deep Defender: The latest version of the jointly developed Intel and McAfee hardware-enhanced endpoint protection product dramatically increases the scope of day zero root kit protection to include Master Boot Record rootkits, which are the source of many stealthy financial and identity stealing attacks.

McAfee Endpoint Encryption for PC or Mac: Major enhancements have reduced overhead to near zero performance impact on SSD drives using Intel's AES-NI technology. Also integration with Intel AMT technology and McAfee ePO Deep Command allows for secure and remote management of powered off or disabled devices including devices using Windows 8.

McAfee Application Control: New enhancements take whitelisting beyond the common desktop environment and now give IT managers control over how a non-whitelisted application can be approved by delivering an innovative three level approval technology.

McAfee Enterprise Mobility Manager: It supports Apple iOS 6 and integrates the newest version of McAfee Secure Container for Android 2.0. This new release provides additional security and management for Android and Apple iOS 6 devices