McAfee updates IntruShield line

McAfee has updated its line of network intrusion prevention system (IPS) products with two new IntruShield hardware appliances for large enterprises and Internet service providers (ISPs).

The McAfee IntruShield 4010 and McAfee IntruShield 3000 are specially built IPS appliances designed to process high volumes of traffic at multi-gigabits-per-second speeds, spotting malicious code, and spyware and thwarting denial of service (DOS) attacks, McAfee said in a statement.

The new hardware builds on the upper end of the IntruShield product line, offering 12 Gigabit ports for monitoring network traffic and 2Gbps of traffic throughput, compared with four Gigabit Ethernet monitoring ports on the IntruShield 4000, an enterprise IPS appliance that was previously at the high end of the IntruShield product line, McAfee said.

IntruShield appliances come with hardened operating systems and use a centralized Web-based interface for policy management and intrusion monitoring.

The products both have features for large-scale deployment by ISPs, Internet carriers and large enterprises. Those features include virtual firewalls and virtual IPS, which allow IntruShield customers to configure and deploy many different firewalls and IPS sensors from a single IntruShield device. Subscriber-level controls allow service providers to extend customized security services to their customers using IntruShield.

The new devices are the latest additions to the IntruShield line, which McAfee, then known as Network Associates Inc. (NAI), acquired when it purchased IntruVert Networks for $100 million in cash in April 2003. In July, 2003, NAI released the IntruShield 1200, which is intended for deployment in remote offices and branch offices, and sports two 10/100 Ethernet ports and throughput of up to 100Mbps.

The new IntruShield appliances will be available in February, McAfee said.