McAfee today announced four new security service suites as part of the Falcon family of products, which provides a more user-friendly interface to McAfee's product line, plus a subscription model.

At the same time, the company snapped up an intrusion prevention and compliance testing firm for its business customers. The company picked up Preventsys, a developer of security risk management and automated security compliance reporting, for a price tag that a McAfee spokesperson described as a "single-digit millions."

Preventsys specializes in security risk management for large companies that needs to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of its customers. Its flagship product is Security Risk Manager, which comes with templates for checking compliance with SOX, HIPAA, GLBA, FISMA, CIS, NSA, NIST, and other regulations.. Customers can also develop their own custom compliance testing templates.

"With Preventsys technology, we can help our customers satisfy regulatory requirements for automated compliance reporting, while leveraging existing McAfee technologies such as McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator and Foundstone," said Ken Gonzalez, vice president of corporate development at McAfee.

McAfee declined to say how many people work for Preventsys and is still working on integrating the company into the McAfee structure, but said the firm is absorbing the Preventsys staff and does not expect to have any redundancy. The company also has not disclosed what role Patrick Harr, chief executive officer for Preventsys, will take.

The Falcon line of products, like Microsoft OneCare and Symantec's Norton 360, combines a number of products into one, taking a suite-like approach for security. They will all use SecurityCenter, which has been redesigned to simplify the use of applications or services and check for updates.

First among them is McAfee Total Protection, designed for small- and medium- businesses or large enterprises, with the usual antivirus and mail filters. McAfee Internet Security Suite is for the home user and combines McAfee VirusScan, Personal Firewall Plus, Privacy Service and SpamKiller in one product. McAfee PC Protection Plus is for basic Internet users and McAfee VirusScan Plus is just the virus checker, with support for Web, instant messaging and e-mail.

The services are expected out this summer when pricing will also be announced. All four will use a subscription model, and the move to Falcon will finalize McAfee’s shift to a complete subscription model.


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