Intel Buys McAfee

[maflynn]

Can't say I saw this one coming
http://www.engadget.com/

Well, we got our copy of McAfee Antivirus for $29, but it looks like Intel had something a little more substantial in mind. The latter has picked up the Santa Clara-based security / antivirus company for a cool $7.68 billion, which works out to $48 per share in cash. Intel informs us that it will function as a wholly owned subsidiary (under the control of its Software and Services group).

 

[jav6454]

Apparently a move to concentrate virus protection down to the hardware level. Something really complex in my eyes. You can't program code into hardware that easily. It is *very* difficult.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

given how fast the virus landscape changes, I didn't think you could program the detection into the hardware level.

 

[jav6454]

given how fast the virus landscape changes, I didn't think you could program the detection into the hardware level.

Oh you well can, but the feat itself is very difficult. Remember, in the IC level programming, all you have is AND & OR gates (although digital ICs can change that). It'd be troublesome to program basic anti-viral commands into the hardware since it'd end up taking way too much space.

 

[AAPLaday]

Yeah was going to post this. Heres BBCs write up and thoughts on the matter Intel Buys Mcafee

 

[Hellhammer]

Apparently a move to concentrate virus protection down to the hardware level. Something really complex in my eyes. You can't program code into hardware that easily. It is *very* difficult.

I think Kaspersky has made at least a prototype of hardware antivirus. If I recall correctly, it was a pretty small chip with CPU, RAM and flash memory integrated into it. Basically the software just ran on that chip meaning that it won't slow down the main system. I don't know how it worked though.

Maybe Intel can integrate all the stuff that is needed into their CPUs to provide antivirus with every Intel CPU. Maybe difficult, but not impossible. We will see...

 

[jav6454]

I think Kaspersky has made at least a prototype of hardware antivirus. If I recall correctly, it was a pretty small chip with CPU, RAM and flash memory integrated into it. Basically the software just ran on that chip meaning that it won't slow down the main system. I don't know how it worked though.

Maybe Intel can integrate all the stuff that is needed into their CPUs to provide antivirus with every Intel CPU. Maybe difficult, but not impossible. We will see...

I never said impossible, but really difficult. However, a solution like that might be good. Notice the might because if it's software on that small hardware, then the viral detection will still depend on the effectiveness of the anti-virus software and depend heavily that the small partition doesn't get hit hard.

 

[cube]

Oh you well can, but the feat itself is very difficult. Remember, in the IC level programming, all you have is AND & OR gates (although digital ICs can change that).

There is VHDL for that.

 

[Jaro65]

I also didn't see this coming. You can bet that there are some heavy meetings going on now in Symantec's HQ's.

 

[belvdr]

Apparently a move to concentrate virus protection down to the hardware level. Something really complex in my eyes. You can't program code into hardware that easily. It is *very* difficult.

It appears it is tied to their mobile strategy. A few links:

http://www.thestreet.com/story/1084...-door-into-mobile-market.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEFI

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent...deal_secure_mobility_by_design.html?tk=hp_new

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/corporatenews/2010-08-19-intel-mcafee_N.htm

 

[PerfSeeker]

Honestly hardware A/V sounds like a horrible idea. How do you do updates reliably and how do they possibly stay ahead of the virus writers anyways?