Symantec Readies DeepSight 5.0

The Symantec program generates profiles of developing threats, ranking them against potential vulnerabilities, as well as presenting countermeasures aimed at mitigating the risks. The vendor says it monitors data from 20,000 sites in 180 countries worldwide and uploads information every five to 15 minutes.

DeepSight Threat Management System annual subscriptions begin at $15,000 per year; DeepSight Alert Services pricing begins at $5,000 per year. The latest version also includes enhanced reporting and customization add-on options.

DeepSight Alert Services provides customized notification of malicious code appearances and vulnerabilities based on individual customer network profiles, the company said.

"The Threat Management System provides a perspective that they can't get on their own," said Symantec product manager Dee Liebenstein. "It's a resource that compliments internal information."

Subscribers to the Threat Management System have the option of contributing their own site data to the service or not. About half of the subscribers share their information, Liebenstein said.

The service currently records approximately 10 million new events a day, Liebenstein said, and maintains a multi-terabyte historical database of more than 6 billion security events.

The near-instantaneous global spread of new threats across the Internet--the recent SoBig-F attack infected more than 1 million computers in less than 24 hours -- is driving the demand for equally rapid updating of both threat and vulnerability assessments, Symantec said.

"Day old threat information has historical interest, but little more than that," Liebenstein said.

The same is true for lag-times in threat diminishment, she said.. "Knowing when things are starting to slow down and be brought under control lets customers better rate risks and allocate resources within their own networks."

This story courtesy of TechWeb.