McAfee plans to ship an updated version of its antivirus management product, ePolicy Orchestrator, in two weeks that adds capabilities such as intrusion-prevention management and rogue-computer detection.
Using ePO 3.5, security managers will be able to deploy McAfee's host-based intrusion-prevention system (IPS) Entercept out to desktops and servers, and receive event information on attacks.
"The ePO will have the ability to generate reports related to Entercept, but the ability to do configuration changes on Entercept won't be until the future," McAfee's director of product marketing, Steve Crutchfield, said.
McAfee is aiming to transform ePO – which includes a console, server and desktop agents – into more than an antivirus and IPS management tool.
For instance, ePO 3.5 would be able to do "rogue-system detection" on the network to find PCs that might not yet have been placed under ePO management control, Crutchfield said.
The updated version can also check Windows-based desktops and servers to determine whether they have updated software patches. However, ePO is not designed to apply patches, only alert managers about patch status.
The ePO management umbrella is widening in other ways.
According to Crutchfield, ePO now will be able to import information about new computers and users from Microsoft Active Directory. Although ePO had been limited to managing NetWare- and Windows-based antivirus software, the updated console now will be able to manage McAfee's anti-virus products for Linux and Macintosh.
Pricing for ePO, which comes as part of the McAfee Active VirusScan software suite, starts at $US38 per user for up to 100 users.
