Liveblog: McAfee Focus 2011 Day 1 Keynotes

McAfee Gebhart and DeCesare

McAfee co-presidents Gebhart (left) and DeCesare (right)

LAS VEGASMcAfee shifts its focus from its Partner Summit to its full Focus 2011 partner and user event here Tuesday morning, featuring a keynote from the company’s new co-presidents, Todd Gebhart and Mike DeCesare.

Partners in attendance at yesterday’s Partner Summit (and ChannelBuzz.ca readers) already know that a big part of the agenda that will be the introduction of the first two products out of the Intel/McAfee DeepSafe strategy introduce by Intel boss Paul Otellini at the recent Intel Developer’s Forum.

We’ll be on hand with the news as it happens – starting with thoughts from guest speaker Sir Richard Branson at 10:00 am Pacific, and continuing with the co-presidents’ keynotes at 11:00 am Pacific.

Join us for the liveblog after the jump.

  McAfee Focus 2011 Keynotes Liveblog (10/18/2011) 
10:17
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Good morning. McAfee co-president Mike DeCesare on the stage, kicking off the morning’s keynotes here at Focus.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:17 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:17
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DeCesare says 469,000 unique malware samples every week, but the volume is misleading. “What we worry about is the one that gets into your organization and takes some of your critical IP.”

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:17 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:19
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DeCesare detailing McAfee’s decision to put its CRM in the cloud. “My IT department was left with a much more complicated environment to live in after that decision,” he says.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:19 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:21
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Looking at the vulnerabilities over the last year, the vast majority have been known and addressable, but get missed because of cost cuts and lack of resources, DeCesare says.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:21 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:22
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“In this day and age, the bad guys are as well-funded as the good guys,” he says, meaning no company can offer absolute safety. “But it our relentless obsession to search for safe.”

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:22 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:23
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Careful wording — DeCesare describes McAfee as the world’s largest pure securtiy-focused company, prior to it was purchased by Intel. The “pure” qualifier eliminates Symantec from the discussion due to its storage/backup business acquired with Veritas.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:23 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:25
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DeCesare describes the new software — DeepDefender — being announced here as part of DeepSafe, as “the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to McAfee/Intel, hardware/software integration.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:25 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:26
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“The security industry is still an incredibly fragmented business,” DeCesare says, going through the examples of consolidation in the database and ERP markets. “You just expect and demand that integration to come out of the box,” he says. And yet many CISOs have 20+ security vendors within their organization.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:26 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:26
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“It’s like putting a lot of walls up, and hoping that one of those walls stops the bad guy,” DeCesare says of multi-vendor security strategies.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:26 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:28
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And with that, DeCesare hands it over to fellow co-presdient Gebhart.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:28 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:31
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Gebhart, amidst mic challeneges, explaining the Security Connected strategy, and how it blends endpoint, network and cloud security with management.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:31 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:32
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Fourth quarter IPS releaes will feature new firewall technology, Gebhart says, bringing it in line with Gartner’s definition of the next-generation firewall.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:32 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:34
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“The bad guys use the cloud to proopogate unique bits of malware. We’re using GTI to beat them at their own game,” Gebhart says.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:34 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:36
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Now discussing the purchase of Nitro Security, adding SIEM to the ePO family.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:36 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:37
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“We’re proud and we’re appreciative of all of our SIA partners,” he says of his Security Innovation Alliance network of companies.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:37 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:38
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“We’re moving closer to the silicon,” Gebhart says of DeepSafe. “DeepSafe is a gamechanger. This technology is a revolutionary new way of approaching securtiy.”

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:38 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:39
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Moving below the OS important because more and more attacks are trying to get underneath the operating system and into the embedded hardware. “If they can bypass the OS, they’re virutally invisible to traditional security software.” That’s the “driving force” between hardware-assisted security.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:39 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:40
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Intel has done this in the past with encryption and virtualization — McAfee sees it following the virtualization model of getting undnerath the OS.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:40 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:41
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Today, announcing DeepDefender — “the next generation of endpoint security” – detects “nearly all” current malware. “Malware can’t hide when it’s interacting with the system — the memory, the drive or the networking system. DeepDefender detects these interactions and prevents infections.”

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:41 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:42
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The second DeepSafe product is ePO Deep Command – ePO and Intel AMT together on the chipset. “Brings together a view that has never existing before with a single operating console.”

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:42 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:43
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“You enterprise is more secure, more recoverable, more cost-effective and greeener,” Gebhart says of Deep Command.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:43 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:44
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Gebhart wrapping up with the pitch for hardware-assesited security that it’s started to roll out with DeepSafe products today. 

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:44 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:46
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And with that, Gebhart is off the keynote stage. Up next, Miles O’Brien interviews Sir Richard Branson. We’re going to wrap up our liveblog now, but we’ll be back at 1:00 pm Pacific with coverage of Alex Thurber’s closing keynote from McAfee Partner Summit.

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:46 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:47
ChannelBuzz.ca: 

Thanks for joining us for this morning’s keynote!

Tuesday October 18, 2011 10:47 ChannelBuzz.ca
10:47