Yesterday I interviewed Robbie Upcroft, McAfee’s SMB sales manager and we spoke about the new threats and the lack of preparedness that the SMB market suffers.

In particular was the need for SMB solutions to be simple yet comprehensive and avoid the need for skilled system administrators to run it. The key words were Endpoint security and Bring your own devices (BYOD) with so many SMB’s opening their servers up for telecommuting.

I am not going to do a formal review – frankly the time it takes to set up multiple test bed PC’s, a server, try to catch virus and malware and measure things like effectiveness is beyond the scope of this publication. But as a former SMB owner I tried to look a bit deeper than a press release.

First the SMB solution now leverages Intel’s ownership of McAfee to introduce some protection technologies at ‘chip level’ – as far as I am aware few other security suites have the ability to utilise Intel’s vPro secure computing technology.

Next it uses white list technology to identify what things can run on the system successfully stopping malware from executing. Not new but a good inclusion and great to stop rootkits and malware.

Finally it uses a single console to install and deploy to all endpoints as well as monitor threats. Not rocket science.

Rob was very keen on security audits and he said that the new suites include a high level of do it yourself “stuff” (please forgive me for cutting and pasting the features from a Press release but I have removed most of the marketing hype)

• Real Time for McAfee electronic policy orchestrator (ePO)—uses a specialized design and best practice questions and actions within the workflow to help every administrator understand their security posture and take action easily and immediately to manage potential risks.
• McAfee® Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)—mobile device management and mobile data security are fully integrated with the ePO.  With ePO, customers can use a single pane of glass and policy environment to manage all endpoints, including the suites’ multi-platform package of smartphones, tablets, Macs, Windows, and Linux. 
• McAfee Deep Defender—endpoints are protected from stealthy attacks through jointly developed Intel and McAfee hardware-enhanced security that goes beyond the operating system, protecting where traditional security tools can’t reach.
• McAfee Application Control for PCs—dynamic whitelisting for laptops and desktops reduces the chance of infection or disruption by containing the applications a user can run, including preventing malware from executing. The technology has been shown by West Coast Labs to offer 100% protection rates with very low system overhead.
• McAfee Risk Advisor—helps administrators instantly see which assets are at highest risk so they can protect the most essential assets first and accurately.

Opinion

I have seen a turnaround from the McAfee of old – Intel’s ownership puts some real credibility into the equation and the ghost of McAfee’s roots (let’s just say that the reputation of wild man John McAfee recently of Guatemala and with no link to the company that bears his name) haunted McAfee.

Can I say that McAfee’s new offerings are better than Symantec, AVG, Kaspsersky, Trend et all?

No I can’t and the new suites are too recent to get system administrators to comment. I can say that McAfee presents a very convincing and comprehensive case and the Endpoint protection suite seems to cover everything that SMB’s need at what appears to be an affordable price.

But I can say that the range of products is impressive – mobile device management, firewall, email, sever, BYOD and more. Offering it to SMBs as a SaaS (software as a service from the cloud) is a good idea.