RSA 2009: McAfee's DeWalt touts Predictive Security

DeWalt said security industry should emulate systems for monitoring weather

McAfee chief executive Dave DeWalt on Wednesday unveiled the company's new security approach.

Known as Predictive Security, the new programme will seek to link up security applications at multiple levels ranging from chipsets to browsers and individual applications.

DeWalt told the keynote crowd that the new approach comes from what McAfee sees as a disconnect between individual hardware and software components.

"The biggest problem we're facing in the security industry is no interoperability between products," DeWalt said.

"When one vector attack comes across a threat, another vector has to learn from that."

To solve the problem, DeWalt proposed a new interconnected security system that allows multiple security applications to share data on potential threats.

DeWalt suggested that not only would doing this improve protection, but also better classify and analyse threats for all users when connected via cloud security services such as the company's Artemis service.

"This changed the way in which we're now analysing security," DeWalt said of Artemis.

"If there's a pattern of malware coming out in Asia, we have the ability to protect users in North America or Western Europe."

Eventually, DeWalt envisions creating a global security network similar to the modern meteorological system in which thousands of small stations throughout the planet interact with larger centralised systems to better monitor and predict weather.

"We're thinking about it the same way," DeWalt said. "Multi-layered, multi-correlated and with real-time visibility."