Trend Micro has launched new products in the security segment in 2008 to address the emerging security challenges. Eric Chong, regional marketing director, APAC, Trend Micro speaks more about the latest security offerings from the company.

Could you brief us on the security landscape of large enterprises? How is Trend Micro addressing this segment?

Organisations of all sizes are vulnerable to data leaks that expose them to security, intellectual property, monetary, privacy and compliance threats. On-the-move workers, equipped with unsecured, unprotected mobile computers, may inadvertently or intentionally expose confidential company information via wireless networks. With an ever increasing array of USB-based devices, all corporate desktops are now also at risk. The new threat landscape puts enterprise security at heightened risk not only during outbreaks but all the time.

A new approach is needed to address Web threats that complement existing techniques. The most effective approach will employ multiple layers of protection and incorporate a range of protection measures. The key to effectively addressing Web threats is a multi-layered approach. This can be accomplished by implementing measures at three different layers. The first layer is in-the-cloud (i.e., before the traffic reaches the Internet gateway), the second is at the Internet gateway and third one is at the endpoint (i.e., the client).

Trend Micro has dedicated, expert units focused on delivering solutions appropriate for different sized businesses. For enterprises, Trend Micro dedicated enterprise solutions combine with the Trend Micro Enterprise Protection Strategy to form an integrated, centrally manageable defence. Trend Micro Enterprise Protection Strategy (EPS) is a security framework that combines multiple layers of products and services for intelligent, comprehensive protection against known and unknown threats. This framework includes innovative new solutions that monitor customer-specific networks while accurately detecting unknown threats in real time.

Do you think Web 2.0 is affecting the Web security scenario?

By using Web 2.0 applications, companies are now communicating with their customers, employees, and partners and allowing them to achieve the goal of true real-time collaboration among these parties. This can increase productivity and provides companies with a way to more easily promote their products. In particular, the creation of online communities and blogs to initiate conversations and share knowledge is proving to be particularly interesting to companies. But new technologies often bring new security challenges and Web 2.0 technologies are no exception. On the one hand, the underlying technologies used actually raise the risk of web-based attacks whilst, on the other, the way that users interact with Web 2.0 applications increase the risk that sensitive information will be misappropriated. This means that the security challenges of Web 2.0 applications are both technical and commercial in nature. Hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, looking to target their attacks at specific people and organisations and the security vulnerabilities of Web 2.0 tools provide them with rich hunting grounds.

What are the latest products launched by Trend Micro to address the emerging security issues?

According to the research conducted by our TrendLabs the Web threats grew by 540% between January 2005 and January 2007. We have launched 2008 suite of products for consumer security. These products will strengthen personal information protection, deliver enhanced performance and improve protection of consumer digital assets.

The three products are Trend Micro Internet Security Pro, Trend Micro Antivirus plus AntiSpyware 2008 and Trend Micro Internet Security 2008. The last two are the updates to existing products. These products are coming up with pre bundled solutions in order to help the customers to maintain compliance standards, leakage protection and to tackle various individual threats. Along with individual customers, we are also targeting the corporate for their employees and education sector.

The new products have therefore been designed keeping the new trends in mind. More over our refined user interface makes managing the new threats easy and intuitive. By focusing on the core customer needs we have made several enhancements to the new line up over the previous products. Memory consumption has decreased by approximately 50% over last year’s products and manual scanning is more than 30% faster than competing products. New and improved functionality also includes proactive intrusion blocking, Web threat protection, enhanced anti-spam capabilities, a two way firewall and fully integrated antivirus and anti spyware engines.