Details Emerge on McAfee Professional Firewall

Last week at COMDEX Fall 2001, McAfee announced a new edition of its personal firewall software. As previously reported by BetaNews, the consumer edition features integrated intrusion detection, a graphical trace utility, and integration with hackerwatch.org – a site that audits security and tracks the activities of hackers. At the same time the company teased users by mentioning the future availability of a professional version without detailing the product's specifications. BetaNews sat down with Sam Curry, McAfee's chief firewall architect to discuss the differences between the two releases.

The advanced intrusion detection feature gathers information needed to allow customers to analyze and identify traffic that is attempting to bypass their firewall. It also lists the type and frequency of attacks being waged. Many firewalls, including McAfee's product offerings, filter outbound traffic to protect against Trojans and other malicious code.

The graphical trace utility generates a world map which zeros in on an attacker's computer - connecting all nodes along the route. McAfee is hoping that this feature will put pressure on crackers, hackers, and the authors of Trojans from attempting to obtain control of any given target PC.

By integrating hackerwatch.org's assets into its personal firewall, McAfee aims to assist law enforcement agencies and third parties to curb hacking activities. The site also includes a variety of self auditing tools.

According to Curry, users of the standard edition cannot submit reports to the Hackerwatch Web site although the firewalling ability of each product is equally effective. All users who submit reports to Hackerwatch must be registered to assist in assigning quality ratings to reports.

Curry told BetaNews that the company must take this step to guard against any potential subversion of information through biased data. Other differences lie in the ability of the software to track down malicious users.

McAfee has partnered with Neoworx, and has begun to use NeoTrace, a graphical traceroute application, to forge a path back to suspected intruders. The professional edition also includes ISP contact information. Neo Trace is available for download via FileForum.

Windows XP support is available despite the fact that the operating system includes its own built in firewall. In interviews with McAfee officials including CIO Doug Cavit, BetaNews was told that the Microsoft implementation of a firewall in XP was rudimentary – only providing protection from outside sources.

Keeping consistent with its antivirus services, McAfee has deeply embedded Microsoft's Passport authentication into the Windows XP version. Curry stated that the firewall services will share the UI console with other McAfee.com Web services.

A go-to-market date is expected to be set for February, and pricing has been set at $39.95 USD with the consumer edition available for $29.95 USD. Competitors include Black Ice Defender, Norton Personal Firewall, Tiny Software’s WinRoute, and Zone Alarm.