TechPulse 360

The beta of Microsoft's antivirus and anti-spam software made its debut yesterday. And it's already unavailable!

Microsoft’s free antivirus dubbed Security Essentials (code name Morro) has been out for just a day – and suddendly unavailable – the security world is already coming at it as if there is no tomorrow!

Speaking at a Churchill Club event yesterday on Cybersecurity, McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt couldn’t help making fun out of Microsoft’s latest security product while pointing to some of its flaws.

“Microsoft had a security product in the consumer and the enterprise space for many years, and the haven’t had a lot of uptake on that product, just a couple percent of market share and they were giving the product for free before anyway. And it’s a little bit of an oxymoron to say that Microsoft has a vulnerability and they’ll protect you,” jokes DeWalt. “It’s encouraging to see Microsoft educate the world in the need of security but at the same time it’s not a lot of a threat for a company like us.”

Some of Microsoft Security Essentials flaw according to McAfee’s CEO:

1. Phishing is the most popular cyber-attack today, not viruses. So even if Security Essentials does a good job at protecting users from viruses, it won’t protect against all the other threats. “It’s a one dimensional product,” adds DeWalt;
2. Can Microsoft really protect you when at the same there are so many vulnerabilities in their products;
3. Security Essentials will only work on a “licensed” Windows machine. “It’s strange that they have built in this product version control. Sounds to me like an anti-piracy tool,” said DeWalt. McAfee’s CEO further notes that Security Essentials will first be available in emerging markets where piracy is rampant, as well as the U.S. and Israel.
4. It’s not multi-platform. It won’t work on a Mac and probably never will!

In any case, Microsoft’s latest security offering is anything but a threat to the well establish security vendors like McAfee or Symantec. But what is troubling, is this could actually be a trojan software which ultimate goal is to fight piracy in emerging countries like China or Brazil.

Here’s a video excerpt of McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt on Microsoft’s Security Essentials threat to his business: