Webroot Pushes SAAS Security

Webroot continued its march down the road of security software as a service with a new online service designed to protect organizations from Web-borne threats.

The launch of Webroot Web Security Software as a Service comes in conjunction with the release of an enhanced version of Webroot E-mail Security SAAS, which includes tools for monitoring and enforcing inbound and outbound e-mail content.

 “Historically, malware has come into the organization vis a vis e-mail on Port 25. And as the threat landscape has shifted, what we’ve seen is roughly 85 percent of malware infections are now occurring vis-à-vis Web traffic,” said Mike Irwin, chief operating officer of Webroot, in an interview with eWEEK.

“The reason being, it is very difficult to deal with a scan for the malware element on the Web port given the performance requirements associated with that. ... That is where I think in my opinion the biggest area of exposure resides for businesses.”

Is your laptop at risk? Find out here. 

Webroot Web Security SAAS is managed and updated in the cloud and routes all Internet traffic through Webroot’s global data centers. There, it is scanned and filtered for viruses and spyware. The service features access control, threat protection, content control, URL filtering, detailed logging and real-time reporting.

Webroot Email Security SAAS scans, detects and applies policies to images and text in inbound and outbound e-mail messages and their attachments. Organizations can set and manage policies at an organizational, group or user level and enforce policies for content detected in the header or the body of e-mail messages in addition to attachments.

It also includes a set of compliance dictionaries that identify e-mail messages that may contain personal financial and medical information before they are sent or received. 

According to a survey by IDC, Web security has the highest planned adoption rate for the next 18 months in the SMB segment of the market, which the analyst firm defines in size as being between 100 and 999 employees. A multilayered security architecture offers organizations a high degree of security as the threat landscape changes, IDC analyst Brian Burke said in a press statement.

 “We believe there are many business and technical benefits for SMBs to consider SAAS as part of their security infrastructure,” he said in the statement.