McAfee and Symantec grasp olive branch over intelligence

Warring duo sign up to Cyber Threat Alliance in a bid to bash the bad guys

McAfee and Symantec have put aside their differences by agreeing to link arms on threat intelligence in a bid to thwart cybercriminals.

The duo announced today they will share information on threats such as botnets and APTs via the Cyber Threat Alliance, which was co-founded by Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks in May.

The alliance claims to go further than previous industry efforts to exchange malware samples by providing more "actionable threat intelligence" from contributing members. They will collaborate not only on malware samples but also on threats such as zero-day vulnerabilities, botnet command and control server information, mobile threats and APTs.

The quartet of previously warring vendors claim their efforts will enable them to stay a step ahead of the bad guys.

Vincent Weafer, senior vice president for McAfee Labs, part of Intel Security, said: "We must match our adversaries' aggressive drive to innovate with our own deeper commitment to collaborate. It's no longer enough to share and compare yesterday's malware samples."

Adam Bromwich, vice president of security technology and response at Symantec, added: "By working together to thwart the next generation of cyber attacks, we will be more effective in fighting to keep the internet safe for users around the world."

David Lannin, director of technology at McAfee partner Sapphire, welcomed the move but cautioned that the security threat landscape has diversified beyond what the alliance covers.

"Broadly speaking this is a positive thing," he said. "But there is a bigger problem out there, which is quite often in the hands of how a user is approaching their IT, and not just about the software the IT administrator puts on the gateway," he said.