Trend Micro Gets Virtualization Update, Public Cloud Security

Trend Micro today announces two new solutions designed to give channel partners a security boost in virtualized and cloud environments: Deep Security 7.5, an update that brings agentless anti-malware to VMware environments; and SecureCloud, a first-of-its-kind public cloud data protection solution, the company claims. Here’s the scoop.

Deep Security 7.5 (Available “Q4 2010,” with pricing at $1000/CPU socket), which can be deployed as software, a virtual appliance, or a combination of the two, now integrates VMware vShield Endpoint APIs such that it can protect VMs with no in-guest OS footprint.

Trend Micro Senior Director of Datacenter Security Marketing Todd Thiemann says that with this approach, each VM is under less strain, and it won’t take a datacenter to its knees when its time for VM after VM to apply security patches.

But the really interesting announcement is Trend Micro SecureCloud, which is designed to give enterprises control of security for data stored in public, private or hybrid clouds. Thiemann says that while cloud service providers have responsibility, enterprises are left holding the bag in the case of a cloud security breach — but SecureCloud is designed to stop all that by leveraging encryption key-management technology as a service.

SecureCloud (also available Q4 2010) works by giving enterprises control over their own encryption key, ensuring that they’re the only ones who can access sensitive data. In the eventuality of a breach, anyone without that key would be left with unusable gobbledegook.

Trend Micro says it can help avoid vendor lock-in since the administrator is in charge of the data’s protection at all times — if you go from any of the supported cloud environments (Amazon EC2, Eucalyptus, and VMware vCloud) to the other, the service provider you just left only has one of those unreadable copies at worst.

VMworld continues this week, and The VAR Guy is keeping his ear to the ground for more buzz like this, so keep watching.

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