McAfee Re-Enters Mobile Security Space, Unveils Other New Offerings

McAfee has re-emerged as a mobile security player and introduced new endpoint, automation and orchestration offerings that scale to meet the needs of larger businesses.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based platform security vendor said its new MVision line of products will extend the breadth of devices under management and make McAfee's portfolio more simple, inclusive and comprehensive, according to Nathan Jenniges, senior director of product management.

The MVision mobile, endpoint, and ePO (ePolicy Orchestrator) tools will be bundled together and offered to customers as an annual subscription, Jenniges said. Jenniges declined to disclose pricing information for MVision, which will start to be released in August.

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McAfee hasn't offered its own mobile security product since exiting the mobile device management market years ago, instead relying on its security innovation partners, Jenniges said. But as threats evolve and more device- or OS-agnostic vulnerabilities emerge, Jenniges said customers and partners have made for more mobile security-related inquiries.

MVision Mobile works for both iOS and Android, and is focused on identifying advanced device, application, and network-based attacks. And while others play in the mobile security space, Jenniges said McAfee stands apart thanks to its integrated management console that spans across PCs, laptops, servers and Amazon and Azure cloud.

Adding mobile devices to the console expands the breadth of devices customers have visibility while making it easier to set consistent policies and correlate threat events across devices, according to Jenniges.

McAfee has offered a cloud ePO in the past, but Jenniges said that was just a version of the company's on-premise software running in the cloud. MVision ePO, though, is a proper enterprise-grade SaaS management offering with substantial improvements and redesigns, according to Jenniges.

The company's cloud EPO was designed around Microsoft SQL databases, which Jenniges said limited the size and scale of the offering. But MVision ePO can scale to meet the needs of large enterprises thanks to being designed around cloud-native databases, according to Jenniges.

Larger enterprises will also benefit from MVision ePO's integration with single sign-on (SSO) authorities, which Jenniges said should streamline the administrative sign-in process. And while the cloud ePO experienced occasional outages when service updates needed to be made, Jenniges said MVision ePO has been designed to experience little to no disruption.

MVision endpoint, meanwhile, is a completely new offering for Windows 10 designed to leverage the native Microsoft security capabilities of Windows Defender, according to Jenniges. Security settings can be managed from the ePO, Jenniges said, and McAfee will augment with specific technologies that it knows can help fill gaps.

Taking advantage of the capabilities already built into the Microsoft OS reduces administrative overhead for deploying and maintaining products while making it possible for security controls to be continuously updated, according to Jenniges. From there, Jenniges said McAfee has been able to identify ways of adding incremental protection in a lightweight manner.

As customers move to Windows 10, Jenniges said they are often interested in endpoint security tools that provide protection in a simpler, faster, or easier manner. MVision Endpoint is often popular with clients that support lots of BYOD tools or have many devices connecting to the cloud rather than to the corporate network.

MVision Endpoint will remain separate from the McAfee Endpoint Security (ENS) product, which Jenniges expects to remain popular with customers that support older OSes or are looking to secure highly-sensitive assets.

W. Capra Consulting Group applauds McAfee's efforts to enhance its product offering and strengthen its position in the marketplace, according to Matt Beale, managing partner for the Chicago-based solution provider. MVision should help McAfee demonstrate how they're implementing their vision, Beale said.

"Ensuring that the core product set is easy to implement is a key cornerstone to getting the product set into an environment," Beale told CRN. "We look forward to implementing the new MVision once it's available."