Mirage, eEye Upgrade IPS Offerings

Mirage Networks, Austin, Texas, launched version 2.0 of its flagship CounterPoint appliance, which will include default detection of new threats, a flexible rules engine, and an enterprise security event viewer. Meanwhile, eEye Digital Security, Aliso Viejo, Calif., unveiled version 2.0 of its flagship Blink software, an endpoint-oriented IPS technology that now will include anti-spyware and anti-phishing capabilities.

The Mirage product, priced at roughly $15,000 per unit, incorporates a new rules engine with increased capabilities to detect behaviors that are against the corporate norm. Among these capabilities is the ability to detect SMTP-based mailer worms right out of the box. Scott Olson, vice president of marketing, said the new features should make the product popular among the firm's 35 channel partners here in the U.S.

"The fact that this is an appliance makes it easy to sell because it is something our partners can literally just drop into their current customer networks," he said, adding that the improved CounterPoint Manager feature makes the product particularly useful for those solution providers offering managed services. "It really is that simple."

The eEye product, for which pricing was not available, boasts a new multi-layered approach to host-based security. The primary layer is an IPS mechanism that protects from attacks leveraging unknown vulnerabilities. Secondary layers include a new anti-malware feature that actively blocks spyware and other password loggers, as well as a new anti-phishing protection designed to detect phishing attempts made via the POP3, IMAP and HTTP protocols.

According to Mike Puterbaugh, senior director of product marketing, the last line of defense in Blink 2.0 is application layer protection that prevents execution exploits from compromising a machine, thwarting all known exploits without requiring a system to be taught what is and is not acceptable network behavior.

"We have so many layers of defense within the agent," Puterbaugh said. "When you consider that channel partners can add to this functionality by helping customers build security policies on top of it, this is a pretty good way to protect users."

Both products are expected to be available by the end of February.