Trend Micro maintains lead in URL filtering, Web security

Issued by Global Research Partners for SecureData

Johannesburg, 17 Sep 2009

SecureData Security, part of JSE-listed SecureData Holdings and the sole sub-Saharan distributor for Trend Micro, today announced that the latter's URL filtering and Web security technologies defeated other market-leading products tested by independent tester Cascadia Labs, just as it did in Cascadia Labs' Q4 2008 report. Again, Trend Micro proves the cloud-client infrastructure of the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network is the best way to block out Web threats.

Trend Micro earned a weighted overall score of 75 (up five from the 2008 test), while the second-ranked product earned 67 points.

In addition to posting the highest score overall, Trend Micro also ranked first at blocking URLs leading to security threats: The company had a dominant 79 score (up from 68 in 2008), compared with other products' scores of an average 50 blocking of different types of malicious URLs. These URLs were independently selected, classified, and verified by Cascadia Labs' proprietary systems. They were neither supplied, nor known, to any of the participating companies, including Trend Micro.

Cascadia Labs concluded: "In these tests, Trend Micro emerged as the clear winner overall, extending the leading position it established in our testing in late 2008. Trend Micro also demonstrated a decided advantage against security threats, with a significant contribution from its Web reputation services. In every security category - malware, exploits, phishing, proxies, and potentially unwanted applications - Trend Micro posted the best score."

Typically, URL filtering and Web security products protect PCs and corporate networks from dangerous, inappropriate, and unwanted content on the Web. These products can block Web pages that may contain sexually explicit, violent, or illegal content. At the same time, they also play an increasingly important role in securing corporate networks - they can provide a first line of defence against malicious Web pages and even legitimate Web pages that have been temporarily hijacked or compromised with malicious redirects designed to steal visitors' personal information.

Trend Micro's URL filtering and Web security technologies are part of the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network, which checks the reputation of more than 20 billion URL, e-mail, and file queries daily. The Trend Micro Smart Protection Network infrastructure delivers security that's smarter than conventional approaches by blocking the latest threats in the cloud before they reach a corporate network. Powering Trend Micro's solutions and services, the Smart Protection Network combines unique Internet-based reputation technologies and patent-pending correlation techniques to offer immediate and automatic protection. Trend Micro blocks over 1 billion threats our customers access daily.

Trend Micro's overall security group blocking effectiveness from Cascadia Lab's report:

Malware: Trend Micro blocked 75% of malware URLs (up from 68% in 2008) - including Trojans, worms, viruses, and other downloads. The competing products scored between 53% and 55%.

Exploits: When pitted against exploits, or "drive-by" downloads, Trend Micro blocked nearly 80% (up from 73% in 2008) of these threats, while the others blocked between 48% and 58%.

Phishing: Trend Micro blocked over 80% (up from 74% in 2008) of these URLs. The next-best product blocked 55%.

Potentially unwanted applications: URLs in this category include questionable, but not necessarily malicious, URLs such as adware downloads. Trend Micro blocked 59% of these URLs, while the worst performing product blocked just 23%.

Trend Micro's URL filtering and Web security technologies are used within a broad range of products and solutions designed for both businesses and consumers:

Trend Micro Internet Security, easy, fast and smart security for the home and home office.

OfficeScan Client/Server Edition, an enterprise-class endpoint security product that provides on- and off-network protection against both file and Web-based attacks.

IM Security for Microsoft Office Communications Server, an enterprise-class security product to protect internal IM communications from file and Web-based attacks.

InterScan Web Security, an enterprise-class solution for securing employees' Internet Web and IM usage.

Worry-Free Business Security, a comprehensive suite of endpoint and hosted gateway solutions to protect small and medium businesses against file, e-mail, and Web-based attacks.

Trend Micro Messaging Solutions utilise Web reputation to block spam by checking any embedded URLs against the company's Web reputation database.

The Trend Micro Smart Protection Network also powers free prevention and clean-up tools for both desktop and smartphone users:

* Trend Smart Surfing for iPhone and iPod touch devices is the first secure browser to provide a smarter, safer experience on the Web.
* Trend Micro Web Protection Add-On proactively protects computers from Web threats and bot-related activity. The free tool works alongside existing desktop protection solutions.
* Trend Micro HouseCall is an online application that scans, detects and cleans computers of viruses, spyware, or other malware.

Testing scope

Cascadia Labs tested the ability of five market-leading products to block content in 22 specific categories within six broad groups of primarily English-language pages: security, adult, bandwidth usage, communications, liability, and productivity and recreation.

Cascadia Labs created an independent URL corpus to address the requirements of the enterprise market, with a particular emphasis on security. The corpus contains 22 unique categories organised into six groups with more than 1 600 000 URLs from approximately 100 000 unique domains, primarily those of interest to English language users.

The Cascadia Labs corpus includes security threats in five different categories: malware, exploits, phishing, proxy, and potentially unwanted applications (PUAs). They represent up-to-date threats, including potential zero-day attacks actually occurring in the wild.

For further information, please contact Lee Bristow at tel +27 11 790 2500; fax +27 11 790 2599; e-mail leeb@securedata.co.za.

Cascadia Labs

Cascadia Labs performs independent evaluations of technology products. Cascadia Labs provides technology companies, venture capital firms, and industry publications with objective, focused testing and analysis of hardware and software for enterprise, small business, and consumer audiences. Their services leverage existing investments in the Cascadia Labs Test Platform and associated URL and malware databases.

Trend Micro

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in Internet content security, focuses on securing the exchange of digital information for businesses and consumers. A pioneer and industry vanguard, Trend Micro is advancing integrated threat management technology to protect operational continuity, personal information, and property from malware, spam, data leaks and the latest Web threats. Trend Micro's flexible solutions, available in multiple form factors, are supported 24/7 by threat intelligence experts around the globe. Many of these solutions are powered by the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network, a next-generation cloud client content security infrastructure designed to protect customers from Web threats.

SecureData

SecureData is a specialist, value-added distributor of perimeter, application, network, endpoint, storage and identity information security solutions and risk management solutions for the African sub-continent and Indian Ocean islands. A cross-section of the available solutions from SecureData illustrates wide coverage of the following information security and risk management domains: business continuity, security appliances and devices, hardware authentication, identity and access management, security and vulnerability management, secure content management, threat management and security services. SecureData's information security and risk management solutions include best-of-breed solutions, devices and appliances for the perimeter, data centres, applications, network, endpoints, messaging and Web. In addition, as a value-add to vendor, channel and customer, SecureData also provides a full complement of support, pre-sales and professional services around the solutions positioned in each discrete security vertical. For more information, visit SecureData at http://www.securedata.co.za.

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