A diagram from McAfee's website shows how its cloud security platform protects key channels
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Security software developer McAfee (www.mcafee.com) announced on Monday that it has launched its McAfee Cloud Security Platform, enabling a customer to secure all content and data traffic between their organization and the public cloud.
The recent Amazon EC2 outage in April has been the catalyst for much consumer doubt in cloud security. McAfee’s platform will likely appeal to those customers looking to take cloud security into their own hands. Some experts have blamed Amazon customers for not taking responsibility, and failing to configure a highly available environment, as Stacy Griggs points out in his WHIR blog.
“Once you move data or applications to the cloud, you essentially lose most – if not all – of your security visibility, which most organizations find unacceptable,” Marc Olesen, senior vice president and general manager, content and cloud security, McAfee said in a statement. “By securing the data and traffic before it travels to or through the cloud, we help businesses extend their security practices and policies into the cloud.”
McAfee says its security platform offers modules that can be deployed as an on-premise appliance, a SaaS solution, or a combination of both. The security modules include web security, mobile security, cloud access control, email security and web services security.
According to McAfee’s website, customers are able to extend and apply their own access and security policies into the cloud instead of blindly adopting the “unique – and sometimes unknown -security practices and policies of each cloud vendor.” The platform will likely provide a challenge to cloud security providers, since it promises to protect data moving between the enterprise and the public cloud.
The platform protects both inbound and outbound traffic moving between enterprise and the public cloud, according to the press release. It also offers a data loss prevention solution so organizations can understand where data is, label that data in terms of importance or sensitivity, build policies to protect it, and then enforce policies while data travels.
In addition, McAfee says “the platform and modules are powered by McAfee Global Threat Intelligence, which leverages the cloud with millions of sensors and hundreds of threat researchers worldwide to deliver real-time – and even predictive – threat intelligence against all known and emerging threats.”
McAfee says it plans to roll out additional security modules in the coming months, including tools to provide “greater granular” control over social media sites.
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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