Realtime puts its head in the clouds

Cloud security services are the way forward, claim distributor

Richard Marsden: F-Secure offers real innovation and leading technology

System builders should forget about installing security software on clients’ machines and get their head in the clouds, distributor Realtime advised last week.

The components specialist is offering its partners an in-the-cloud security service and has signed a contract to distribute F-Secure’s technology for fighting cyber crime.

Software-as-a-service is not a classic offering for a hardware distributor, but times are changing, argued Richard Marsden, sales director of Realtime.

System builders need to keep coming up with something new, he said, and that can be confusing. “F-Secure offers real innovation and leading technology,” said Marsden. “Its 2009 version, which is available for OEM and retail, fits our customer profile perfectly.”

F-Secure uses object reputation analysis to combat fraud and malware before it even reaches the client.

It argues that the internet security industry needs the speed and power provided by cloud computing to be able to respond to the exponentially growing volume of cyber crime. Why neutralise the processing power of a PC, said Marsden, when you can outsource this activity?

The firm also develops cloud computing and reputation-based services using the power of end-user systems and collaborative intelligence.

F-Secure launched its real-time protection network in September. DeepGuard 2.0 will combine local analysis of a user’s programme behaviour with the use of a real-time protection network. This identifies good and bad software and collates intelligence.

With the threat to users changing by the day, normal packaged security cannot cope with the amorphous malware monster that surrounds them, argued Pirkka Palomäki, chief technology officer of F-Secure.

“Our protection network is based on cloud computing and designed to support a bigger range of security services than just anti-virus,” he said.