He isn’t so sure the acquisition is motivated by security considerations above all others. From what we know this isn’t to change any time soon,” he said.
“A bunch of their business products were shipping with Eset as well. Urban Schrott, cybercrime analyst with Eset Ireland, pointed out that Intel was already shipping its products bundled with various IT security tools from a range of vendors, not just McAfee. He pointed out that the chipmaker had its own LanDesk Virus Protect product which it sold to McAfee’s chief competitor Symantec – albeit some 12 years ago, which in the IT industry is a lifetime. Graham Cluley of rival security firm Sophos couldn’t resist a dig at Intel’s ‘hokey-cokey’ security strategy. That’s possibly why you don’t have to go far to find others who are less bullish about the deal.
#Mcafee xp embedded software
While no one is suggesting mobile devices should get a free pass in any business environment, CIOs and IT admins should be wary of buying too much protection against a threat that – so far – seems to be more hype than substance.Ī history of software acquisitions and salesĪll of which is to say, there’s no cast-iron guarantee this deal will catapult either party to success in a market that’s very different to their traditional strongholds. This makes it a much easier target to attack.
#Mcafee xp embedded Pc
A crucial difference is, the PC market is for all intents and purposes a monoculture (sorry Linux and Mac fans). But while PC vulnerabilities are legion and their number is constantly growing, malware for mobile devices is nowhere near as common. There’s no doubt that many more devices are becoming internet-enabled and PCs will soon be overtaken as the dominant means of accessing the internet (watch out for a certain German carmaker that will incorporate a wireless hotspot into one of its latest models). “You may be surprised that Intel has a software group, when you commonly think of them as a hardware company. In fact, McAfee is a perfect fit with the Intel acquisition of Wind River, a leader in embedded and mobile software. McAfee’s strategy of protecting the multitude of devices such as ATMs, printers, digital copiers, and cars fits with helping organisations better manage and protect the IP-enabled mobile and embedded devices that run Wind River embedded and mobile software.” According to Kurtz, the acquisition also dovetails with McAfee’s own purchase of Solidcore, a developer of dynamic whitelisting technology for embedded systems. McAfee CTO George Kurtz blogged shortly after the deal was announced and maybe not surprisingly he too talked up the synergies. “Bringing security down to the hardware level is particularly critical at a time when exploits at the OS level are getting more sophisticated on PCs and mobile OSes are still highly immature in the security arena,” she said.
Gartner research vice-president Leslie Fiering said the acquisition makes sense when seen in those terms. DeWalt’s answer was a classic of the ‘ruling-nothing-in-but-ruling-nothing-out’ genre.Įarly analysis of the deal, helped by noises from both camps, is that this is an attempt to put security at the source of computing: building it into hardware from the start rather than bolted on afterwards which is how the problem is mostly tackled at the moment. During an interview with him in Cork last May, I put the acquisition question to him when the rumoured buyer at the time was HP, not Intel. While some are calling the deal a surprise, McAfee had been the subject of acquisition rumours and the company’s CEO Dave DeWalt has a history of buying and selling companies. Intel said it will pay USS7.68bn or US$48 per share – a 60pc increase on McAfee’s closing price the day before. Not only is the world’s largest chipmaker buying the No 1 antivirus and security software provider, it’s also paying a premium for the privilege. To any CIOs or IT chiefs with security projects in the pipeline: now might be a good time to look for board approval and budgets because security’s profile has been given a massive shot in the arm with news that Intel is acquiring McAfee. Will businesses pay more attention to fighting malware after high-profile deal?