ENTERPRISE SECURITY
MCAFEE
Securing Connected Devices
McAfee has outlined its strategy for IoT and together with Intel it is working to have the most complete connected security portfolio. n B Y: M A N A L I M I S R A < M A N A L I @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >
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enternet of Things (IoT) has opened up new opportunities but it has also raised plethora of security challenges as well. According to reports by IDC, the installed base of the IoT will be approximately 212 billion “things” globally by the end of 2020. This creates a need to manage and secure the IoT environment. McAfee, part of Intel Security, is tapping the opportunity and has outlined its strategy for the same. “IoT is probably one of the biggest things that Intel wants to look through McAfee. Securing your network and infrastructure is one of the key factors but the biggest threat is how security is evolving in day to day life. Technology is moving ahead but it is also about how to do it securely. Intel and McAfee are very much interested into this and we are investing a lot of resources in this industry,” comments Vibin Shaju, Regional Manager, PreSales Middle East, McAfee, Part of Intel Security. McAfee is entering into different OEM partnerships. When it comes to wearable technology, the company may tie up with different car manufacturers who are into IoT. “The best way is to understand their technologies and how we can map the security to those technologies without really impacting the feel of the product as such.
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It is still new but the investment is in progress. A lot of things will be coming with our technology embedded into them,” adds Shaju. Stephan Neumeier, Channel Director, Emerging Markets, McAfee, Part of Intel Security says that the channel today is still focused on corporate and enterprise business. “However, I see the shift already in the consumer market. We work very closely with Intel which is reaching out to the right customers and the right partners are addressing the technologies for IoT. All the wearable devices are connected to your phone or connected to your internet directly. They can track your personal data and you really want to have those data secured. Going forward, this is what we are doing with Intel and working with OEMs to make sure that the devices which are going to connected are secured,” he adds. Neumeier says that for IoT, he doesn’t see a huge move today in the enterprise business but eventually those devices will find their way into enterprise business as well. With Intel, McAfee is creating a platform for security. So, it’s not about McAfee, it’s about other vendors who can come in and gain and share knowledge with each other. “This is where McAfee came with a technology called Data Exchange Layer. It is all about creating a protocol
out of security. We along with Intel are creating a standard for security so it’s not only about McAfee products, it’s about sharing this knowledge to outside vendors so that they can actually plug in to this platform and share information and make the world more secure,” says Shaju. McAfee has R&D across the world. Soon after the McAfee integration into Intel, the company got additional resources in R&D which according to Neumeier McAfee as a company could not have afforded. “We are enjoying great support from Intel but the R&D team itself across the world,” he adds. In this region, McAfee has Cyber Defense Center to collect information locally. After the recent incident in Saudi, the company has decided to have a local team here which is completely product independent, and is called the Foundstone team. McAfee takes pride in the breadth of security it has. “McAfee is the biggest security vendor in the world. The breadth of solutions we have and the amount of information we gather is much more than any other vendor in the market. We see traffic from network, content, and end point. There is a huge amount of information, which we get from different portion of the network which makes the intelligence we have much stronger. When we have much stronger intelligence,
J U LY 2014
MEA
16/07/14 9:26 am