In response to the continued rise in Web-borne malware and botnet threats, McAfee, Inc. (NYSE:MFE), today announced the release of McAfee Web Gateway version 7.
With the rise in social networking and interactive applications such as blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, and other interactive Web 2.0 technologies, the Internet has evolved and enterprises are taking advantage of these innovative platforms to conduct business in more efficient, collaborative ways.
With these exciting innovations in the Web 2.0 world, the threats have multiplied and what were once simple viruses have morphed into blended threats, spyware, and targeted attacks that traditional security such anti-virus and URL filtering can’t protect against.
The use of targeted attacks leveraging Web-borne malware are becoming more sophisticated and prevalent. Most of these attacks are “zero day” and are used to capture resources for ever-expanding botnets or to steal business information including personal or customer information, records, financial transactions and intellectual property. McAfee Web Gateway platform enables employee access to authorized Web 2.0 applications, while reducing risk by combining local and cloud-based protection, powered by McAfee Labs.
“Today’s most prevalent threat to enterprises is from zero-day, Web-borne malware,” said Dan Ryan, executive vice president and general manager of the Network Security business unit at McAfee. “McAfee provides protection at every stage of an attack, as demonstrated during Operation Aurora, which targeted Google and dozens of other companies. Reputation management is an essential part of that protection.”
McAfee Web Gateway takes a bi-directional hybrid security approach that includes a new intent-based anti-malware scanning engine, along with several cloud-based technologies. Integration with real-time McAfee Artemis technology protects organizations against viruses, provides mobile filtering for remote users and expands Web reputation capabilities. Through Web reputation and Global Threat Intelligence, the platform blocks access to infected websites, stops malicious content from downloading and prevents back-channel communication of infected machines. 
“Our experience with McAfee Web Gateway version 7 is extremely positive. It allows for additional flexibility and granular control over the polices that we create,” said Tristan Hoar, Technical Analyst for Service Birmingham, a provider of internet service for more than 185,000 users. “This will ultimately allow us to achieve enhanced performance from the existing infrastructure as we can tune our polices to ensure the filtering decision is made in fewer steps.”
With this release, McAfee Web Gateway 7 (formerly Webwasher) offers the following enhancements:
• Advanced Security: New, patent-pending approach to behavior analysis performs real-time content inspection to unveil any embedded code, buffer overflows or exploits. Cloud-based technologies offer mobile filtering for remote users, and expanded Web reputation capabilities including geo-location and URL categorization.
• Enhanced Performance and Scalability: McAfee Web Gateway version 7 is highly scalable with robust performance on existing appliances. Additional deployment capabilities include support for VMware and transparent proxy options for added flexibility and control.
• Full content security: Companies can realize increased security and cost savings from integration of McAfee Web and Email Gateways with McAfee Network Data Loss Prevention and the McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator platform. These integrations help organizations achieve a significant return on their investments while leveraging the benefits of Web 2.0 enabled applications.
McAfee Web Gateway version 7 is currently available and is licensed on per user basis. Exact pricing is determined based on customer requirements and selected deployment methods which include appliances or VMware.