McAfee unveils 2005 range of consumer products in the UAE

The new solutions including a range of firewall, anti-virus, anti-spam and anti hacking applications were launched at a press conference held today in Dubai, UAE.

The new solutions, McAfee VirusScan Home 9.0 McAfee VirusScan Professional 9.0, McAfee Personal Firewall Plus 6.0, McAfee Spamkiller 6.0, McAfee Privacy Service 7.0, McAfee Internet Security Suite 7.0 and McAfee QuickClean 5.0, are considered to be the most comprehensive defence tool available in the market to help in computer integrity and protection against security compromises.

Speaking at the press conference, Abdulrahman Gorashi, General Manager SMB & Consumer, Middle East & Pakistan, McAfee said, "The UAE is leading the region in terms of IT penetration as more users have made computers a central element in their professional and private lives. Correspondingly risks to data integrity and computer security have widened which if left unchecked can severely affect end-user productivity. The new solutions from McAfee have been developed to deliver effective solutions to identify and combat almost any conceivable type of attacks on personal computers."

Gorashi also announced the appointment of Logicom, a leading regional IT distribution company, as sole distributors for McAfee's consumer products in Lebanon, Jordan, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. Logicom will handle the complete range of OEM & FPP McAfee Products. The company will also conduct training sessions addressing all segments of the market to develop awareness for the latest McAfee products and technology in the reseller community.

Commenting on the partnership with McAfee, Omiros Pissarides, General Manager, Logicom, Dubai said "Our key objective is to maintain the quality and credibility with which we serve our resellers across the Middle East market. Our agreement with McAfee puts Logicom in a unique position to present our partners with a complete product offering, while enabling us to engage in the dynamic, fast growing field of computer security and privacy protection."

Logicom, which is listed on the Cyprus Stock Exchange since January 2000, currently has offices and warehouse facilities in Cyprus, Lebanon, Greece, U.A.E, Jordan, and Kuwait.

At the press conference, Gorashi introduced the latest line up of McAfee products to the UAE market, starting with McAfee VirusScan Home 9.0 that offers some of the most refined virus scan processes in the market. With an enhanced user interface, VirusScan Home 9.0, offers full integration with the Anti Virus engine resulting in faster scanning and less chance of system degradation. The VirusScan Home 9.0, new features include; detection of web diallers; improved scheduled scan features that now detect both viruses and spyware; automatic updates scan for spyware signature files and detection of Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUP) as well as inbound and outbound email and Instant Message (IM) scanning for the most popular email clients, including Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape Mail, Eudora among others. The McAfee VirusScan Professional 9.0 is an advanced version of VirusScan and offers a two-user licence in addition to bundling McAfee SpamKiller 6.0 and McAfee Shredder.

The McAfee Personal Firewall Plus 6.0 is an essential tool for computer users today as it continually safeguards online communications, protecting against unauthorized access of PCs and personal data, in the backdrop of increased broadband and high-speed internet usage. The new version has improved intelligent application handling features, that automatically denies outbound Internet access to malicious applications that might secretly transmit personal data to hackers, while allowing trusted programs to connect without unnecessary alerts or false alarms. In addition, the advanced worm protection features, helps stop virus-like worms to spread themselves. When a worm is identified, McAfee Personal Firewall will add it to the list of known applications that can't be trusted. An improved setup assistant makes the job of building and configuring of a firewall easy and allows high levels of customisation.

McAfee Spamkiller 6.0 uses a multi-layered filtering engine to detect and delete unsolicited, fraudulent, inappropriate and offensive emails being distributed in record numbers. Improved layered security strategy of Spamkiller 6.0 is complemented with invisible text and image filtering that zeroes in on colourless content and telltale code inside image-only or image-heavy emails that spammers use to evade anti-spam engines. Additional features include improved white-listing and intentional misspelling filtering features that help stop spam with camouflaged content offering fine tune spam traps for the customer.

McAfee QuickClean provides a set of efficient and easy-to-use tools that safely removes digital debris, while keeping sensitive data private. McAfee QuickClean ensures unwanted personal information is safely removed to optimise security and performance. The major feature of the new and improved version of Quick clean us Application Remnant Cleaner (ARC), that ensures that all remaining files and folders and remnants of uninstalled applications are cleaned.

The McAfee Internet Security Suite is the most comprehensive and integrated Internet defence available in the retail market. The security suite is built upon McAfee's award-winning technologies and safeguards personal data, prevents viruses, prohibits unauthorized computer access, blocks hackers and spammers, and helps block pop-up ads. The suite contains, McAfee VirusScan, McAfee Personal Firewall Plus, McAfee SpamKiller, McAfee Privacy Services (only available online) and McAfee Parental Controls. The suite also helps prevent phishing and identity theft and contribute a great deal to preventing online child abuse. The suite offers, improved integration points and greater product interoperability. The suite is also available in a two-user licence version.