Juniper, Symantec to Take on Malware

Networking gear maker Juniper Networks Inc. and Symantec Corp. are teaming up to put malicious-code detection software on Secure Sockets Layer VPN appliances.

Juniper plans to announce this week that it will ship malware detection technology from Symantec on all its Secure Access SSL VPN appliances. The integration will enhance endpoint protection against Trojan horse programs, keyloggers and remote control applications and make it easier to spot infected machines attempting to connect to enterprise networks over SSL tunnels, Juniper officials said. The deal is just the latest sign of intense competition in the market for malicious- code detection technology, as vendors of all stripes look for ways to spot infected computers and prevent them from accessing network resources.

Juniper will integrate the Confidence Online malicious-code detection technology, which Symantec acquired from WholeSecurity Inc. in October. Confidence Online analyzes the behavior of software programs to determine whether they are safe. It can identify malicious code without using signatures to identify the threat, said Karthik Krishnan, a product manager at Juniper, in Sunnyvale, Calif.

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Confidence Online will ship on all SSL VPN appliances that use Junipers new IVE (Instant Virtual Extranet) Version 5.2 operating system. The technology can scan computers attempting to access a network before they establish an SSL VPN session, after they establish a session or intermittently during the session, said Krishnan.

Computers that have or acquire malicious code before or during VPN sessions can be disconnected or forced to access a server that will help remove the threat before reconnecting, he said.

Continental Airlines Inc. has been evaluating the integrated malware protection features. The company had been using Confidence Online with its Juniper SSL VPN devices prior to Symantecs acquisition of WholeSecurity, said Andre Gold, director of information security at Continental, in Houston.

Integrating malicious- code scans with SSL will enable Continental to perform the same security tasks with one fewer box.

"This is a huge pain point. The addition of SSL VPN and Symantecs [intellectual property] has really limited the security liability of remote connections," Gold said.

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