Trend Micro Moves Security into the Cloud

Trend Micro officials hope to change the forecast for Web-based security threats with its new in-the-cloud Web site reputation technology.

The technology is part of the company’s Total Web Threat Protection strategy and a key component within the company’s plans for its Secure Content & Threat Management security portfolio.

“This whole Web threat protection system is pushing the protection back to the Web,” said Trend Micro CEO Eva Chen in an interview with eWEEK. “In the next few quarters, you will see a lot of products coming out under this whole umbrella of Web threat protection strategy.”

Trend Micro has included Web site reputation technology in OfficeScan 8.0, currently in beta form. OfficeScan 8.0 adds support for Microsoft Vista and also offers protection against threats via the Web through anti-spyware technology. Earlier this month, the Tokyo-based vendor released a Web reputation browser plug-in called TrendProtect.

Unlike other URL-filtering and Web reputation tools, Trend Micro’s products will rely on a dynamic database of IP addresses updated constantly to prevent users from accessing sites known to distribute malware used to build botnets. The domain reputation database maps over 300 million domains daily, and every five minutes there is a new entry, Trend Micro officials said.

Recent figures from Symantec’s semi-annual Internet Threat Report suggest Trend Micro’s emphasis on the growth of botnets is not misplaced. Symantec researchers found a worldwide total of about 6 million distinct bot-infected systems in the last six months of 2006—a 29 percent increase over the first six months of 2006.

Click here to read about Trend Micro’s security products for SMBs.

Web reputation is, at its basic level, a credit check, Chen said. The company also utilizes a dynamic rating for Web sites to determine a score on how safe the sites are.

“If this Web sites just come to exist two hours ago, do you really want to do business with them?” Chen asked rhetorically.

“We always see that the whole network is the whole system. You cannot just protect one part; you need to protect the whole part,” Chen said. “The earlier you can reject the bad things, the better your ROI is.”

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