Next generation firewall is all about bringing real security capabilities to the edge. The drive from companies to deploy advanced security functionality in their edge devices created and then propelled the evolution of this segment. It now continues to drive market growth and appears on course to soar from its $500 million mark in 2012, to $4.6 billion by 2016.

To deliver on market demand, you must combine the high-availability and enterprise management abilities that network engineers and architects require with advanced security capabilities.  As we looked at this marketplace, we were impressed with StoneSoft’s unique ability to deliver on both of these requirements. As we integrate this best-in-class technology into the McAfee framework, we will be able to provide impactful functionality and customer ROI not yet realized in the space.

During our due diligence process, we were so impressed we actually hired two third parties to conduct their own studies to ensure our excitement was warranted. The industry has been impressed as well. The Finnish company proudly sits in Gartner’s “visionary” quadrant in the firm’s 2013 Network Security Firewall Magic Quadrant. Its technology also scored the much-sought after “Recommend” status in NSS Labs’ 2013 firewall tests.  In addition, since the announcement, we have seen numerous industry experts applauding the move.

As with any acquisition, the next step is ensuring we provide a great place to work and innovate for the new team joining us. As we look ahead to do that, we plan to integrate StoneSoft into all key aspects of our security fabric, from our comprehensive malware protection solution, to our integrated endpoint offerings – delivering functionality that would otherwise challenge disconnected architectures.

The McAfee-StoneSoft union covers all the new network fundamentals:

·         Advanced IPS. McAfee’s IPS Network Security Platform has already established itself as a market-leading solution in this field of very tough competitors.

·         High Assurance Firewall. McAfee’s proxy-based Firewall Enterprise (the firewall formerly known as “Sidewinder”) has provided this high assurance firewall protection for some time.

·         Next-Generation Firewall. StoneSoft brings the application awareness, full stack visibility, extra-firewall intelligence and upgrade paths into the network security picture.

·         Advanced Gateway.  McAfee’s gateway solution serves as a consolidation point in the network, giving a central location to provide numerous essential ablates, from SSO to DLP.

Connecting endpoint with network through our Security Connected strategy is a multiplier for defenses across all vectors. But this is particularly so if the products bring fresh threat intelligence into battle with them.

Because an enterprise must become smarter about the threats that attack it, the flow of threat intelligence between solutions on different fronts makes the whole enterprise stronger. McAfee already prides itself on its Global Threat Intelligence (GTI) Network, which assembles and analyzes threat intelligence from millions of sensors around the world. As the only company to capture intelligence from all threat vectors – file, web, message, and network – McAfee can provide real-time, reputation-based, and often predictive threat intelligence.

StoneSoft brings a world-class next generation firewall to the Security Connected framework, its Evasion Prevention System (EPS) informs this ecosystem with information on advanced evasion techniques (AETs) – the stealth tactics used to disguise exploits in advanced targeted attacks. StoneSoft’s EPS would bring to GTI a wealth of intelligence on AETs and a 24/7 automated evasion testing environment that can run up to 2 million AET tests every day.

This combination of superb product technology, threat research, and testing capabilities is totally in line with McAfee’s own holistic approach to security – an approach that uses threat information to understand the whole picture, across all vectors, and act on it with Security Connected solutions that learn from and become stronger through intelligence, experience and visibility.

We look forward to the prospect of working with the StoneSoft team given the threat landscape facing our customers and the market opportunity that awaits those who best meet its challenges.

In honor of McAfee’s Global Community Service Day this week, our President Mike DeCesare and Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom spoke at a local Bay Area High School about the responsibilities they have as what Newsom calls ‘Digital Natives’. This term means that Generation Z was born into an amazing technical age; having study sessions on an iPad with students scattered around the globe comes as naturally to them as hopping on a bike and heading to your best friend’s house to study for Spanish was to us. Gen Z doesn’t know a world without rapid technological advances – they have lived and breathed technology from before they could speak (have you ever seen a 1 year old navigate an iPad? I have.) . The rest of us, who can remember when the internet was something called America Online,  are what the Lieutenant Governor calls ‘Digital Immigrants’ – we might be able to pick up the language, but we will never understand it in the same way that the Natives do. As DeCesare commented to the crowd, “In an incredibly connected world, you (Gen Z) are the generation which will be leading one of the most major transformations of mankind.”

Great power indeed.

Digital Immigrants, the people that are responsible for educating the future generations, are put at a great disadvantage. We will always be behind the curve, struggling to keep up and understand the world from the eyes of the Natives. What we can do, however, is educate these future technological prodigies in values that have been ingrained in us since we were children; Responsibility, Self-Worth, and a little something called Doing the Right Thing.

In a world where inappropriate videos go viral and get a million hits in a single day, where teen moms can become famous for their indiscretions, and where celebrities get more press time when their lives are spiraling out of control – it can seem that these traditional values no longer apply. Yet when given the opportunity to share their message with a group of children for an hour, both DeCesare and Newsom spent their valuable time on one of the oldest values in the book – Responsibility.

Will Generation Z use their power for good or evil? Only time will tell.  One thing clear right now, it is up to us to teach them, guide them, and empower them to use their power responsibly.

How will you empower your children to be responsible and do the right thing?

Comment below, and for more information, follow me on Twitter @tctompkins.

In part two of a new five-part blog series on Redefining Endpoint Security,  we explore some of the new security threats facing customers, but most importantly, we feature the products that can help you differentiate, grow, and prosper as a McAfee partner.

Last week, we covered Real Time for ePO with its amazing technology inside that helps collect McAfee endpoint security product status instantly.

This week, we’ll take a closer look at Deep Defender, the first McAfee product built on DeepSAFE technology co-developed with Intel.

Many companies understand how network security works and run operating-system level security (and may think they’re protected), but cyber criminals’ malware can circumvent traditional network security solutions that work within the operating system.

Deep Defender is a proactive solution that works on kernel-level threats and beyond the OS to help keep networks safe. Think of it as a super hero hiding in your customers’ infrastructure to stop threats.

Deep Defender is deployed using the ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) management console and supports Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors.

Advantage for McAfee Partners: Protecting Your Customers from the Start

For McAfee partners, this means you can recommend a solution that protects your customer from the start. Deep Defender automatically removes rootkits once deployed.

With a security solution that works beyond the operating system, there’s a new vantage point for security.

Learn more about McAfee Deep Defender and stay tuned for part three of our Redefining Endpoint Security series next week.

Today’s youth has been brought up with the advent of the internet. As a generation of ‘digital natives’ they often know more about the ins and outs of online than their parents do.  While it’s important for children to embrace new technologies and the benefits they can bring, there are dangers in cyberspace that both children and parents need to be aware of. In many cases, parents feel intimidated about how technologically advanced their kids are and refrain from enforcing rules that are imperative for protection as kids surf and socialise online. But at what cost?

As a father of two, child internet safety is front of mind for me and I recently stumbled across some new research on the subject as I was travelling. Parenting website Netmums questioned 825 children aged between seven and 16 on their internet usage and 1,127 parents on their perceptions of kids’ online habits.

The study found that more than a quarter of children pretend to be older to access certain websites, with an additional half of respondents stating they have accidentally accessed inappropriate content online. What’s worse is that almost 30% of the parents questioned admitted to allowing their children to access the Internet without restrictions or supervision.

We commissioned our own research last year, conducted by OnePoll, which revealed similar findings. We questioned 2,000 UK parents of children aged 5 to 15 on their kids use of the internet and found:

• 82% of five year olds already own or use an internet enabled device
• 60% of parents frequently let their child surf the web without adult supervision
• One in six parents have been shocked to discover their child viewing unsuitable content
• Only 45% of parents have had a serious conversation with their child about the dangers of online; a third believe the media is responsible for educating children
• 50% of parents haven’t taken any sort of preventative measures to ensure their child can’t access inappropriate content

There’s a clear disconnect between what children are doing online and what parents believe they are getting up to. More work needs to be done to redress the balance, and McAfee is committed to the cause. In November 2012 we launched an Online Safety for Kids programme in the UK, following success for the scheme in the US. The aim of the programme is to raise awareness of the potential risks and share knowledge about how to stay safe online. Our staff volunteer to teach online safety courses at schools in the communities where they live and work, alongside an online portal that provides schools, parents and kids with handy tips and tricks on how to safely navigate cyber space.

In addition to the programme, we had our annual community day on the 16^th May, which saw McAfee employees going into schools to talk to youngsters about the dangers of the online world. This is an initiative that is very much close to my heart and, unlike the rest of my work, is something that I bring home to share with my own kids.

In order for children to take advantage of the benefits of the internet, parents have a key role to play in educating children on the dangers that lurk online. Security software is available that can restrict what kids see and do on the web, taking a lot of pressure off parents to stay current with every new risk. McAfee Family Protection is an example and is built to empower parents to say ‘yes’ to their children’s online activity, knowing they will be safe as they learn and explore.

But it’s also important that parents get involved with their kids’ online lives, and make sure they know how to act and react to what they see on the web. This should include frequent one-to-one conversations on how to practice safe online behaviour, whether they are researching their latest school project or chatting to friends. In playing an active role, parents can have peace of mind that their children are safe, protected and informed about the risks.

There is no better way to celebrate McAfee’s 25^th anniversary than dropping the smartphones, calendars and computers to give back to the community. More than 50 percent of McAfee’s global workforce in 40 different countries turned out to participate in Global Community Service Day.

After the success of last year’s Global Community Service Day, this year employees are going all out!

We are leaving the office to go into classrooms to teach kids the importance of cyber safety and how they can stay protected. We are joining local food banks to help feed the hungry and homeless in cities around the world. We are cleaning up local parks and beaches. We are working with at-risk kids to help them get on the path to success. We are caring for sheltered animals by giving them the love and care they did not have before. We are getting our hands dirty to show that safety and security goes beyond the digital world.

By making an impact within our communities, even if it is just for one day, shows our commitment to making the world a more secure place. We are teaching an estimated 20,000 school children around the world on the importance of cyber safety in hopes that they will leave the classroom knowing how to engage within the online world.

Help us in our effort to make a personal impact by giving back your time or teach your friends, family and children about the importance of being safe online.

Please check out pictures and video from Global Community Service Day on our Pinterest and Twitter pages!

Competition helps inspire two teams to push further and the fans to cheer harder.

In business, as in the case of McAfee and Symantec, our rivalry means we create better products, push to stay on top, and help our partners do the same.

Head-to-Head in CRN

As you may have seen, CRN’s Head-to-Head slideshow featured McAfee and Symantec competing in the security arena around spyware protection, intrusion prevention, and overall channel profitability.

As with any good rivalry, the game is always exciting. While CRN’s consensus is that Symantec does have a strong portfolio, McAfee came out on top for Security Management Console (ePolicy Orchestrator), cutting-edge hardware-based security, and overall partner profitability.

“Show me the money” –  Keeping Partners Profitable

While industry accolades validate the work we do at McAfee–and we’re always flattered to receive them—one of the biggest success metrics for me is to see partners’ profitability increase. So we were especially thrilled to hear that partners told CRN that our channel program is more profitable and that our efforts to increase support for your businesses haven’t gone unnoticed.

And customers appreciate the results, too. For customers, we’re setting a new industry standard for time to respond. We know it can be difficult to share intelligence across different solutions and that’s an issue for customers who are dealing with threats and want to respond quickly.

Transforming Security, Together

As I wrote back in February in my post Transforming the Security Industry…Together, you can’t adequately protect customers from the volume and sophistication of today’s cyber attacks without an integrated security platform that proactively and intelligently protects. That’s why using an end-to-end McAfee solution is so key to network security for customers.

We’ve got the tools to respond to threats in real time with Real Time ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) that queries information from all of your customer’s endpoints in seconds, leading to more intelligent analysis and quick decision making on the part of IT.

With new devices and new threats hitting networks every day, it’s our goal to work together to ensure customers’ networks stay secure through innovative products and help you stay profitable through innovative channel programs.

I recently gave a speech at TED@Intel on the challenges of parenting in the Digital Age. I asserted that we live in a world in which parents are digital tourists and our children are digital natives.

We came of age in an era when technology complemented how we worked, played, interacted and related to the world around us. Our children are coming of age in a world where technology goes beyond complementing, to profoundly changing how they live their lives, understand the world, and relate to each other.

Given this digital generation gap, I asked the question: Are we truly technically fit to parent in this day and age?

I related the story of a friend who struggled with whether to regulate or forbid his daughter’s use of Twitter. Just as a tourist might decide not to visit a foreign country because it appeared unsafe, my friend’s reaction was to deny his daughter access to her account.

Natives don’t have that choice. They must develop skills to ensure their safety in a potentially dangerous world. In the same way, we need to figure out how to ensure the safe passage of the digital natives — our children — through social media, rather than denying them access altogether.

Our ability to have any real impact on our children’s safety in this digital world will depend on how technically fit we are to parent. And by “technically fit,” I don’t mean “technically savvy.” By immersing ourselves in the digital world, I believe we can equip ourselves with the tools we need to govern and protect our children online.

For more, I invite you to watch the full speech here.

By 2016, 38% of companies will stop providing devices to their workers, says Info Security magazine. Allowing employees to bring their own device means less control of what devices end up on the network. The more “rogue” devices, the more endpoints, the more risk.

Of course, as a McAfee partner you’re well aware of the security risks involved with not having a bulletproof endpoint security solution in place.

Threats that weren’t even a blip on IT’s radar a few years ago–rootkit/beneath-the-OS threats, digitally-signed malware and advanced persistent threats (ATP)–are just some of the new tactics being employed by today’s cybercriminals. (Checkout McAfee Threats Report: Fourth Quarter 2012 for more details on today’s security threat landscape.)

In this new five-part blog series on Redefining Endpoint Security, we’ll explore some of the new security threats facing customers’ networks, but most importantly we’ll feature the products that can help you differentiate, grow and prosper with McAfee.

First up, Real Time for ePO™ with an amazing bit of technology inside that helps collect McAfee endpoint security product status instantly. No waiting.

Using a scalable peer-to peer methodology for querying information from all of your customer’s endpoints in seconds, Real Time for McAfee ePO expedites feedback. This means more precise and current information and that leads to more intelligent analysis and quick decision making on the part of IT.

Compare RealTime for ePO to every other type of reporting. The others all provide a picture of the past that could be hours or even days old, depending on an endpoint’s last check-in time to a network. Ask your customers what it would mean to them, to have real time intelligence.

With real-time visibility, your customers can proactively take action on the most recent intelligence. Being able to recognize and correct any under-protected and non-compliant endpoints means that even the intern’s spyware-riddled tablet can’t touch the network.

A Big Deal for Partners, Too

The endpoint market is projected to grow from $3.8B in 2012 to $4.88B in 2017, according to IDC. Together with you, we’ve built a more than 60 million endpoint install base. Customers who own the Endpoint Protection Suite (EPS), Endpoint Protection Advanced (EPA) or Total Protection for Enterprise (TPE) are entitled to Real Time for ePO today. Make sure your customers enable the Real-Time for ePO feature so they can experience the benefits and lock them in for their next endpoint renewal.

As for your Greenfield or competitive displacement endpoint security opportunities, make sure to show your customer how quickly and easily they can access crucial security status data and refine defenses to stop endpoint risks and compliance concerns. Real Time for ePO and real time intelligence is something no other security vendor can provide.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is reshaping today’s workplace and is changing the way IT purchases, manages and secures. Combine that with the new tactics and technologies being used to evade today’s standard security measures and the big question becomes, are your customers ready for these security challenges?

Learn more about ePO and stay tuned for part two of our Redefining Endpoint Security series next week.

• Real Time for McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator Data Sheet
•  McAfee Delivers Unified Rapid-Response Security Management
• Reserve your spot at our upcoming webinar with a live demo of Real Time for McAfee ePO on May 15, 2013.
• Product Guide: Real Time for ePolicy Orchestrator 1.0.0
• Real Time Special Edition User Guide 1.0

We are very excited, as evident by Pat Calhoun’s latest blog, about what this potentially means to our network security offering, business and partners. With our industry-leading IPS, this next-generation firewall technology will allow us to address an entirely new and larger enterprise segment.

Unlike many of our competitors, firewall is not a new market for McAfee. The next-generation firewall market has massive upside. We believe this market will be led by companies that can deliver an integrated solution. Stonesoft can help strengthen our integrated offering.

We anticipate completing the acquisition in Q3 2013 (July-Sept). However, until the close, we will continue to operate as separate companies, which means we are focused on working with you to close network security deals based on existing McAfee technology. Currently we offer you the ability to sell the most complete network security portfolio in the industry, which includes, industry leading IPS, high assurance proxy-based firewall, advanced threat intelligence as well as web and email protection.

If you couldn’t attend, please be sure to view the replay and understand our strategy plus the tools and resources available to you to drive mutual profitability.

In our first quarter, McAfee saw solid new business growth and very strong growth in our Web Gateway and SIEM technologies. Deal registration was also up nearly 40% y/y.

Our numbers demonstrate our success together. However, we need to continue to disrupt and create new avenues for growth and profitability. Lisa Matherly, Vice President, WW Partner Programs and Marketing, provided a recap of how we can do it:

• Invest – Take advantage of the Stack Challenge, McAfee Rewards, and ACE Incentive.
• Grow – Use our new Data Center & SMB channel kits & Rebates Program.
• Optimize – Read the Channel Spotlight Playbook (available May 22), download the new iPad app on (available May 29), and take the Fast Start SMB Training.

Michael Fey, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, rounded out the call with an informative and insightful discussion around Big Security Data and how McAfee is simplifying the move from security intelligence to action, creating not only operational efficiencies for our customers, but also an industry-leading security posture that only McAfee and our partners can deliver.  Our Big Security Data channel kit went live today.

Again, I encourage you to watch the event replay and understand how our Big Security Data solution enables our customers to move fast, learn quickly, and act decisively.

We can do more together. Be sure to follow us closely @McAfeeChannelChief in the weeks ahead, don’t leave money on the table by taking advantage of the McAfee Stack, and save the date for the Partner Summit at FOCUS 13, Sept. 30-Oct. 1.

Together we can!