Trend Micro multi-layered products, technologies combat world's top Web threat across 100m customer seats

SecureData, a member of the JSE-listed ERP.com Group, and the southern African distributor for Trend Micro security software, today announced that the latter's three-year investment in a portfolio of products addressing the number-one Web threat today - spyware - is being adopted by customers worldwide and paying dividends among channel partners.

IDC estimates that between 2004 and 2005 Trend Micro's worldwide anti-spyware revenue increased by 273.1%, the highest growth rate among the top three revenue leaders in anti-spyware, and greater than the overall combined anti-spyware market growth of 151.7%.

Trend Micro's anti-spyware solutions are currently protecting half a million customers at 91.5 million seats from spyware, among other Web threats.

A rising tide of malicious Web pages are now infecting computers with spyware and other threats while users surf the Web, thereby compromising machines, data and identities silently, without any user interaction. Trends like social networking, mobile computing, and 'googling' have combined with a sharp rise in the purposeful planting of spyware and other Web threats on the Internet to create a perfect storm of criminal activity on the Web. Even if the initial infection is e-mail-based, Trend Micro researchers are finding that such infections will then download additional components from the Web. Spyware is just one major class of Web threat being used in a global underground economy to make money through identity theft, extortion and more. Other Web threats include phishing attacks, local-language targeted attacks, botnet-driven Web denial-of-service attacks, drive-by downloads and network and Web viruses. The company expects Web infections will surpass e-mail infections as the number one infection vector overall by 2008.

"Web-traffic-borne menaces like spyware are creating an all-time high concern among organisations," commented Brian Burke, research manager at IDC. "Web-security solutions, such as those from Trend Micro, that enhance and are integrated with traditional anti-virus deployments at the gateway, client, server and desktop will become invaluable against Web-based malware attacks."

In 2003 Trend Micro introduced its first software security product containing anti-spyware, PC-cillin Internet Security 2004, followed quickly by products integrating anti-spyware for the corporate desktop (OfficeScan) and the gateway (InterScan Web Security Suite). As a gateway leader offering an award-winning cross-product and consistent enterprise protection strategy, Trend Micro always espoused a multi-layered approach for protection and remediation, and that was true for combating Web threats like spyware, whether at the gateway or the desktop.

Since then Trend Micro has introduced gateway Web threat protection in three form factors - software, hardware appliance and hosted service - for both enterprises and SMBs. These offerings are supplemented by popular Damage Cleanup Services built into the products. The company through its acquisition of anti-spyware leader InterMute in May 2005 offers channel partners and customers a choice of standalone or integrated anti-spyware products in all three segments the company serves - consumer, SMB and enterprise. Trend Micro's multi-layered solutions for business can be centrally managed through a single Web-based console, Trend Micro Control Manager.

With the acquisition of InterMute, existing Trend Micro anti-spyware researchers collaborated with top-shelf engineering talent at the newly established Trend Micro office in Braintree, MA to integrate the powerful anti-spyware scan engines of both companies into one feature-filled anti-spyware dynamo officially known as SSAPI 5 now shipping in several Trend Micro products, with more to come.

The SSAPI engine has powerful features to address and stop even the most complex and varied categories of spyware, including support for 64-bit platforms and Windows Vista, functionality to stop or eradicate cloaked and deeply hidden rootkits, improved problem-spyware handling of self-resuscitating spyware traces, and an enhanced Venus Spy Trap active-monitoring feature.

Trend Micro product development teams have been integrating advanced heuristic/behavioural spyware-blocking features like InterMute Venus Spy Trap technology, now shipping for example in the new Trend Micro Internet Security 2007 for consumers.

For further information, please contact Wayne Biehn at telephone (011) 790 2500; fax (011) 790 2599; e-mail wayneb@securedata.co.za.