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McAfee Aims to Prevent Linux Attacks

By David Worthington, BetaNews

June 13, 2005, 8:26 PM

McAfee is looking to help protect against what it calls a dramatic increase of attacks on Linux systems. The company's Entercept intrusion prevention system -- already available for Windows and Solaris -- uses a combination of behavioral rules, signatures and a firewall to protect IT infrastructure from attack.

The security software maker ported the Entercept server agent to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 because of what it considers to be a rapid rate of adoption for the open source platform. McAfee says that as Linux is more broadly installed, attacks against it have increased with more exploits targeting Web-facing Linux applications.

According to McAfee, attacks against Linux applications have risen dramatically. McAfee points to security bulletins found at Secunia as evidence, deeming it, "one of the most reliable sources we use for vulnerability awareness."

McAfee has mapped out extending support to other Linux distributions beyond Red Hat. Explaining why Red Hat was the first Linux distribution to be supported, Dan Wolff, the senior product marketing manager for Entercept, said, "Red Hat is the most prominent platform in use by our customers at this time."

McAfee claims that it is the only vendor to combine both behavioral rules and intrusion prevention signatures. As previously reported by BetaNews Entercept for Linux was available in beta form in March.

The retail release will be available through McAfee direct sales and channel partners on June 16, 2005. Existing McAfee customers will be able to procure Entercept for Linux under the terms of their maintenance agreement with McAfee.

More information on Entercept is available at McAfee's Web site.

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By hyperchem

posted Oct 28, 2005 - 10:47 AM

i thing linux is the most safest OS ever
but if mcAfee join linux union is great deal and idea

why we want to hack an open OS such Linux
why we don't hack other OS that so expensive and hape a firewall on it

Score: 0

By oingram

posted Aug 5, 2005 - 1:18 AM

Just sounds like they are seeing the market trends and porting their product over to take advantage.

http://www.ingsoft.net

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

posted Jun 14, 2005 - 10:51 AM

Bad wording in title: "McAfee Aims to Prevent Linux Attacks". OH NO!!! LINUX IS ATTACKING!!! :)

Mcafee finally makes a smart move for market share, and this time they beat Symantec to it.

Score: 0

By Opie

edited Jun 14, 2005 - 8:53 AM

It is too expensive for small businesses.

Score: 0

By TomasF

posted Jun 14, 2005 - 12:35 AM

'McAfee points to security bulletins found at Secunia as evidence, deeming it, "one of the most reliable sources we use for vulnerability awareness." '

Hihi...

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

edited Jun 14, 2005 - 11:17 AM

ROFLMAO! Secunia, accurate?!? =)

Score: 0

By shy_one

edited Jun 14, 2005 - 1:29 AM

There is going to be a lot more viruses and exploits for linux found soon the PS3 will run linux or any other OS that you install after buy a hard drive for it since gamers prefer to spend on games linux will be the main choice for it.

Don't know why BetaNews doesn't have an artical about it seen stories and interviews popping up on the net since last friday.

http://www.gamespot.com/...06/09/news_6127219.html for example the more people using it the more attention it will get from hackers and virus writers.

Score: 0

By Mark Gillespie

posted Jun 14, 2005 - 10:54 AM

Your arguments make no sense.

Yes CAN run Linux, after buying the HDD, but it's main operating system is embedded, and not linux. Only a very small percentage of PS3 owners will ever install linux on their PS3, take the PS2 (which also has linux available for it) as a guide. How many of the 70 million PS2's sold have Linux running? couple of hundred thousand tops...

Score: 0

By athome

edited Jun 14, 2005 - 8:18 AM

I did not know that PS3 was going to use Linux, I read it was still undecided.

Score: 0

By shy_one

posted Jun 14, 2005 - 3:41 PM

KK: I believe its wrong that, while we've been calling PlayStations "computers," Nintendo, which is in our same business, keeps telling the world their consoles are "toys." So even though we're making something that has the capability to be recognized as a supercomputer and requires paperwork when exporting or importing, the government sees it as a "toy." The PlayStation 2 has something as great as the Emotion Engine, and it can even run Linux, but it's still considered a gaming machine. I thought that the situation would become better since Microsoft appeared [in the gaming industry] from the IT field. But they won't say it either, since they want to protect their business. They see problems if the Xbox could run Windows, so they keep calling the Xbox a "game machine." It is really a pain in the neck. This time, we're positioning the PS3 as a "supercomputer." But people won't recognize it as a computer unless we call it a computer, so we're going to run an OS on it. In fact, the Cell can run multiple OSes. In order to run the OSes, we need an HDD. So in order to declare that the PS3 is a computer, I think we'll have [the PS3's HDD] preinstalled with Linux as a bonus.

This part of the article even mentions that it will probaly come with Linux.

Lets see now the ps3 will sell millions of units many of these people will buy the hard drives and just use the console as their computer to surf the net read email and store all thier information on it and probaly download from p2p sites.

With all the new millions of linux users don't you think that will attract the atention of all the hackers virus writers and dam addware people making it worth their while to start targeting linux more often?

Can't wait for it to come out this will be very good competition for Microsoft and should help make LoneHorn affordable if it ever comes out to give it a try:) PLus i've always wanted to give Linux a try but i've tried a few times installing different versions of Linux but unless your a techie you can realy mes your system up even had to reset the bios a couple times so i gave up on linux which is why why MS is the dominate OS put disk in hit install find something to do for half an hour enter product key register and good to go.

Score: 0

By athome

edited Jun 15, 2005 - 9:07 AM

I agree with you there. I had the same problems, and was not interested in learnign a new OS, but am thinking twice in the past few months. Linux is here to stay and I see small bits from MS that it will make that change as well, only reluctantly due to the decrease in profits. MS has made it easy! The most part though is that the manufacturers are making products to fit them not Linux. So, I have to take that with a grain of salt. If technology moves in that direction, think of the ease for anything.

Thanks for the article bit. It is great to see them even give the HDD this time around rather than make it an extra - as well as the OS. I am tired of buying extras for the game consoles. What a market that is!

Score: 0

By gawd21

posted Jun 13, 2005 - 11:12 PM

If Mcafee is making it, it will break Linux.

Score: 0

By school1012

posted Jun 13, 2005 - 9:49 PM

Linux is secure, you don't need an anti-virus progrm, unless they lied and they are not secure.......

Score: 0

By Mark Gillespie

posted Jun 14, 2005 - 10:51 AM

Any operating system can be secure, or insecure. It depends on who configures and uses it.

I can make XP and IE enviroment safe, just as easy as I can make my Gentoo Linux system wide open to attacks..

Score: 0

By athome

posted Jun 14, 2005 - 8:17 AM

It is sad to see what some people pass off as intelligence in this forum. It must be your age, but "nothing" is secure. This is not a knock against Linux, just a bash against all those users that feel that their OS is more secure than the rest. As more and more people use Linux, the less secure it will be. That is the point that they are trying to make in this article.

Keeping the attitude you have will ultimately cause your own demise.

Score: 0

By deadmonkey

posted Jun 14, 2005 - 5:07 AM

Thats like saying "I'm a good driver and my Volvo is secure, I don't need to wear a seat belt". In production environments you can't afford to take chances like that. Yes Linux is secure but that doesn't mean it is immune to every kind of attack.

Score: 0

By fewt

posted Jun 13, 2005 - 8:51 PM

Very cool news, I wonder if it will integrate with or replace the facilities already built into Linux.

Score: 0

By nate

posted Jun 13, 2005 - 9:03 PM

Good question. Here's the URL that should have been linked above:

http://www.mcafeesecurit...sktop_server_agents.htm

Score: 0

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