RSA show spotlights pragmatic solutions

This week's RSA Conference will showcase enterprise security products designed to fortify existing security investments and fight common threats such as viruses. The parade of vendors touting offerings includes Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Sourcefire, Symantec, and TippingPoint.

Microsoft's Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates will deliver the opening keynote speech at the show, where he is expected to detail future Microsoft security products, including a consumer anti-virus product. The company last week acquired Sybari Software, an anti-virus, anti-spam, and e-mail content-filtering company.

Other vendors on hand at the conference include Symantec, which plans to introduce updates to its Symantec Client Security and Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition. Hewlett-Packard is also announcing a variety of security solutions, including HP Virus Throttle, a software program designed to quickly control the spread of viruses across corporate networks and reduce related damage.

Intrusion prevention companies TippingPoint and Sourcefire will also be unwrapping new wares. TippingPoint will introduce the 5000E Intrusion Prevention System, which will perform total packet inspection and prevention at 5Gbps with real-world traffic. Sourcefire plans to announce its new intrusion prevention system, the IS5800 Series, which is also capable of operating at line rates as fast as 5Gbps and is designed for enterprise networks and latency-sensitive applications such as VoIP.

One analyst said the RSA show will reflect enterprise interest in practical solutions to nagging threats such as spyware and spam. "here are trends around integration and extension rather than innovation," said Chris Christiansen, IDC's program director of Internet security and research director of its infrastructure software program.

"lot of people have solutions that never worked to their expectations, so [they] are looking for existing solutions to work better. They are looking for components that don't cost a fortune to integrate," Christiansen said.

Also aiding enterprise security managers will be a number of new Web sites and security information portals that will be unveiled at the security conference. Computer security experts have relied on sites such as Securityfocus.com (now owned by Symantec) and The Sans Institute's Internet Storm Center to provide information on new threats and vulnerabilities. But the rapid increase of new threats in recent months has spawned even more security sites, such as The Anti-Phishing Working Group and Digital Phishnet, used by law enforcement agencies and ISPs.

Among the new security information portals to be unveiled this week are McAfee's MyAvert, an educational portal that will provide security information, alerts, and reports for enterprises and consumers, and IronPort Systems' Threat Operations Center Report.

-- Paul Roberts, IDG News Service, contributed to this story.