McAfee publicly enters the IAM market

One of the largest IT and security technology vendors in the market, McAfee is finally looking to take its place in the identity and access management (IAM) market. However, as a newcomer to this market, its products already provide some robust capabilities. This is because they were developed and previously sold by Intel, which completed its acquisition of McAfee in early 2011. It is now providing cohesion around its products, rebranding those from Intel under the McAfee brand. There will be more to come.

McAfee is not trying to reinvent the wheel by developing another on-premise offering as there are plenty of those to choose from. Rather, it is embracing the need of organisations today to ensure that IAM capabilities are extended out to external applications and users, interfacing with corporate directories and on-premise IAM systems from other vendors. In the first public announcement in April 2013, McAfee introduced two products in this area-McAfee One Time Password and McAfee Cloud Single Sign On-as well as a centre of excellence devoted to identity that aims to provide customers, prospects and partners with the latest information and the ability to interact with McAfee on issues related to IAM.

Stating that “identity is an integral component of an enterprise security strategy,” McAfee’s IAM capabilities are being positioned as a core enabling part of its Security Connected framework, which is designed to provide organisations with a centralised mechanism for risk mitigation and for better aligning security with business initiatives. With capabilities covering network security, information security, security management, endpoint security, and solutions from its partner community, the Security Connected framework covers needs from protecting the data centre to enabling social media and the consumerisation of the workforce. It runs the gamut from securing critical infrastructure, through fixed-function devices, to mobile devices. It covers business needs from protecting resources from internal threats to neutralising advanced malware.

McAfee states that its strategy is to build trusted networks of identifiable people and services and its strengths lie in the integration with a wide range of security controls, as well as its ePolicy Orchestrator central management platform. By establishing itself as a player in the IAM market, it is a big step closer towards achieving that ambition.