Network Associates eats Spam with Deersoft
Network Associates eats Spam with Deersoft
Security provider Network Associates has added an anti-spam product to its anti-virus offerings, through the acquisition of privately held Deersoft.
For an undisclosed amount Network Associates acquired technologies associated with Deersoft's consumer and enterprise anti-spam products. Under the terms of the deal, Network Associates will also assume all support obligations for Deersoft customers. Deersoft's products run tests and heuristic scans on incoming e-mail, pick out unwanted messages and determine whether to reject them or log it for further review.
Network Associates, which recently completed the acquisition of the remaining 25 per cent of McAfee it didn't already own, said the Deersoft acquisition is "the first in a series of investments" the security company is making in spam and content filtering technologies.
Deersoft technology will be integrated into McAfee's consumer products in the second quarter of 2003 and business products in the second half of the year.
The technology will be delivered at the gateway, email server and desktop for enterprise customers. The first product, McAfee SpamKiller Enterprise, will be delivered in the second quarter as a desktop solution.
McAfee's enterprise policy manager, ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO), will also updated to manage SpamKiller Enterprise and delivered in the second quarter. With this enhancement, Netwok Associates claim ePO will be able to manage spam, McAfee and competitors' anti-virus products as well as personal firewalls, gateway and email protection from a single scalable tool.
In the second half of 2003, the technology will be integrated into the McAfee WebShield and GroupShield products to provide protection for Internet gateways and email servers.
Spam is expected to account for half of all e-mail received by companies in 2003, up from a quarter in 2002, Network Associates said, citing research from Boston-based technology research company Aberdeen Group.
Art Matin, president of McAfee for Network Associates said, "With Deersoft, we have acquired extensions to the leading open source 'black list' application and we will add applications that detect spammers even before they appear on black lists, supplementing that with the ability for customers to filter internal content with very tight control."
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