McAfee president: Intel acquisition 'one of the most profound things to hit IT'

DeCesare predicts hardware-assisted security future for the endpoint

McAfee's co-President Michael DeCesare has described Intel's 2011 acquisition of the company as "one of the most profound things to hit IT" as he outlined a future in which hardware-assisted security becomes the norm for the endpoint.

Speaking at McAfee's FOCUS 12 Event in Las Vegas, DeCesare told assembled partners, customers and press, "We'll see a massive move forward in hardware-assisted security. You'll understand that the acquisition between Intel and McAfee was one of the most profound things to hit IT. My prediction will be a situation where customers will simply not buy endpoint unless [security] is tightly coupled with the machine it's on."

Despite using the presentation as a reason to push McAfee's new Deep Defender product, which the company says offers the world's first hardware-assisted security via its DeepSAFE technology, DeCesare reflected on the past twelve months in order to back up his assertions.

Commenting on the increasing rise of social media, DeCesare revealed that McAfee had discovered a 76 per cent rise in malware through organisations, which they have said is linked directly to the increasing use of social media - be it through customers or simply through employees themselves - in the workplace.

"Criminals can now use it to find out who is friends with who, and what their interests are," said DeCesare. "These are great tools to help cyber criminals."

Meanwhile, the increasing importance in cloud is being underestimated on a security level, said the co-president.

"The problem is that most organisations say ‘This is how I provide security for my own applications, so I should be able to replicate that in the cloud'. And I say that's a big mistake," said DeCesare.

DeCesare used the example of banking, and how a bank uses not just extra software security to protect credit cards, but also decreases the options criminals have with physical cameras on top. "We have to have a [similarly] higher level of expectation for the security of cloud," warned DeCesare.

Besides commenting that big data can now be used to "act more intelligently" to prevent malware and fraud, DeCesare's next big target was the rise of mobile applications.

"We've seen an absolute explosion in the mobile applications space in the last twelve months," said DeCesare. "But it's still very immature; most applications out there are only scanning to see if there's any malware on what's being posted [in app stores]. It's not good enough; we need to make sure there's not vulnerabilities inside those applications to make organisations more susceptible to penetration."

DeCesare described how, 24 months ago, "it was all about stealing the device itself - the number one area of crime."

But now, he said, "it's about stealing the information on the device. Virtually every mission critical application we have inside of McAfee is in some way accessible on mobile devices. This is why we've seen such an explosion in malware in these areas."

McAfee, said DeCesare, saw "1.5 million new pieces of malware" last quarter alone.

"That's a big number. It's three times the amount of applications that are on the Apple app store right now," said DeCesare.

"But it's not about the volume. It's menacing, and something we all have to deal with, but it's really about these critical, targeted attacks."

DeCesare also pointed out that the growth in pervasive market share by Android and iOS has meant that "the bad guys have less platforms to have to support", and is making mobile devices naturally easier to target.

To illustrate the point, DeCesare had McAfee's Mike Fey target and reduce two laptops running Windows and iOS, and a tablet device running Android, to "brick systems".

Fey used modular computer virus Shamoon (also known as Disttrack) to wipe out the systems' boot sectors and operating systems in a matter of seconds.

Fey pointed out that McAfee's research had found that, despite the many rumours about Shamoon, which was linked to attacks on several major oil companies earlier this year, the virus could not steal data. It simply, "destroys everything you have on a timebomb. That's it," said Fey.