Trend Micro has announced Deep Discovery, the third generation of its threat management solution previously known as Trend Micro Threat Detection Appliance, a product that the company is using to address the growing challenge of targeted attacks and advanced persistent threats.

“[Deep Discovery] is building upon some technology we already had, but we’ve listened closely to customer and heard that targeted threats are becoming much more commonplace, and despite their best efforts to stop them with technology, some of them are getting through,” said Ian Gordon, director of marketing and channels for Trend Micro Canada.

The new version is the first for the company that can run either on a standalone appliance or as a virtual software appliance, a measure that will provide more flexibility and “lets it fit more easily into the data centre,” Gordon said.

At launch, Deep Discovery will also include advances in its Network Overwatch technology, including realtime analysis, dashboard and reporting, as well as the ability to run questionable code in a sandbox to determine whether it is or isn’t malware. Gordon said the new version will also take the information it discovers and easily integrate into major Security Information and Event Management solutions, although he declined to discuss which SIEM offerings Deep Discovery would integrate with out of the box.

Although APTs and targeted attacks have been around for a while, and have gained a lot of attention with the success of Stuxnet and other major attacks, Gordon said Deep Discovery still represents net-new territory for many solution providers. That’s especially true as interest in threat management solutions begins to percolate down from large enterprise and government markets into the midmarket and beyond.

“People are so concerned with these targeted attacks that having some sort of way to protect against those attacks and deal with them is critical, particularly in light of growing compliance requirements,” Gordon said.

In fact, risk tolerance, rather than customer size, is probably the best indicator of whether a customer is a good fit for Deep Discovery, he suggested.

Deep Discovery is slated to debut in the second quarter of 2012.