Blue Coat, CA on the spyware patrol

With spyware looming larger as a security threat, vendors are rolling out products aimed at combating the menace.

This week Blue Coat Systems will upgrade its Web proxy appliance with tools that can block spyware from entering an organization and halt previously infected PCs from communicating with spyware sources.

With this upgrade (free for existing customers), Blue Coat's ProxySG appliance will be able to filter code being downloaded from the Web and block installation of spyware such as "drive-by" installers or Trojans, says Chris King, the company's marketing director.

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With spyware looming larger as a security threat, vendors are rolling out products aimed at combating the menace.

This week Blue Coat Systems will upgrade its Web proxy appliance with tools that can block spyware from entering an organization and halt previously infected PCs from communicating with spyware sources.

With this upgrade (free for existing customers), Blue Coat's ProxySG appliance will be able to filter code being downloaded from the Web and block installation of spyware such as "drive-by" installers or Trojans, says Chris King, the company's marketing director.

Spyware-based communication from infected PCs attempting to send collected information across the Internet also would be stopped, he says.

Glenn Wright, senior telecommunications technologist for the state of Delaware's department of technology and information, which manages a network of nearly 150,000 users, says in addition to crashing PCs, spyware is a problem in terms of "bandwidth utilization." The state is planning to upgrade its Blue Coat appliance with spyware blockers.

Spyware is coming to play a role in the Network Admission Control (NAC) program started by Cisco last year, which until now has been focused on virus and worm problems and how to isolate infected or vulnerable desktop computers until a remediation process takes place.

Computer Associates (CA), which recently purchased anti-spyware software vendor PestPatrol, announced it has joined the multi-vendor NAC initiative to make sure spyware detection and eradication is included as part of the network quarantine capability.

"What's important is not allowing the PC onto the network unless it's behaving properly, and that includes spyware as well as viruses," says Sam Curry, vice president of eTrust security management at CA. CA plans to integrate a core software component, the Cisco Trust Agent, into PestPatrol Anti-Spyware and eTrust AntiVirus by next month so both will work as NAC-compliant software in the Cisco network-quarantine process.

Curry says CA also is working with Microsoft in a parallel effort called Network Access Protection (NAP) . Anti-spyware controls will play a part in what CA accomplishes in NAP isolation technology, which was started after Cisco's NAC.

Read more about security in Network World's Security section.