Why Intel bought McAfee?

Everybody knows about this acquisition.

Now, why did Intel (chip produced) needs a Software Security company ?

There are some possible reasons:

1. To enter in a multi-billion market which needs fresh ideas and technologies

2.  To produce better security software which makes use of their multi-core processors

3. Both

4. Add AV in the CPU (or on the board) directly(with some help from the “cloud”)

5. Create an AntiVirus Chip -> move from software to hardware (which they know better)

Of course, I vote for 3… Both.

But also 4 isn’t so bad 😉

Why ?

Well, because there is what the so called “Moore’s Law“. And, Intel is preparing for the point when it will stop being valid.

So, if they can’t produce better hardware, they would better adapt the software that runs on it so that it works much, much better.

Intel is already a major player in the software industry. They produce a lot of good software ranging from drivers and software for the hardware, compilers, code analyzers and integrated development environment.

So, what the AV world is missing is software that runs optimized on those cores. We all try to implement our code in such a way that

it uses those cores, but many things in AV can be only done in one thread. Or … maybe I’m wrong…

4. to build AV protection in the CPU directly…

This is not new, but also I haven’t seen anything which runs correctly and is integrated in the motherboard or something.

5. AntiVirus Chip … now that would really be something.

Practically you don’t have to install an AV ever again. Uhhhh… Ugly thought.

We’ll see what the future brings us.


© Copyright 2010 Sorin Mustaca, All rights Reserved. Written For: Sorin Mustaca on Cybersecurity


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