McAfee reaches out to partners for help

McAfee presented a vision in which ePolicy Orchestrator served as the centre for an enterprise security model

Keeping true to his company's recent strategies, McAfee chief executive Dave DeWalt discussed collaboration during a keynote at the company's FOCUS 09 conference in Las vegas.

DeWalt explained that McAfee needed the help of partners and third-party vendors to gain ground against cyber criminals.

"We are still in the infancy of solving these problems," he said. "We are here to figure out a better way to solve these problems, and we need your help. "

DeWalt's keynote followed what has been a theme for McAfee in recent months. The company has actively looked to partner with other security firms to supplement its own efforts, including the recently expanded Security Innovation Alliance.

DeWalt presented a vision for the company in which the McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator served as the centre for an enterprise security model, surrounded by a number of supporting 'satellite' products to provide more specialised protection.

"By having a common architecture we have the ability to correlate and help solve these threats," he said. "This is in its 1.0 phase, but it can evolve and we want it to evolve."

To help further boost the effectiveness of the programme, DeWalt and chief technology officer George Kurtz unveiled a new monitoring tool for the ePolicy Orchestrator platform known as Risk Advisor 2.0.

The tool allows IT staff to assess possible vulnerabilities in systems, and list possible solutions. Kurtz suggested that it could help companies weigh up the possible impact of vulnerabilities, and better schedule maintenance.

"Risk Advisor allows you to pinpoint what assets you have, what assets are vulnerable, what threats they face and how to protect against them," said Kurtz.

"Think about a world where, instead of patching on a monthly basis, we can patch on a quarterly basis."