In the cybersecurity world, the term “antivirus” is out of favor. (“McAfee” is even more so, thanks to its namesake’s behavior, but that’s another story.) Software and firewalls designed to detect and eradicate viruses on your system or business network—such as what Symantec, McAfee (now known as Intel Security), Cisco, and Check Point provide—still leave customers vulnerable to attacks, according to Nicole Perlroth’s report in the New York Times.
To survive today’s vicious threats, companies want tools that predict the attacks that are coming and put up defenses before they show up. Intrusion prevention is the name of the game.
Perlroth reports that small upstarts FireEye and Palo Alto Networks are among those challenging Intel and Symantec with products that do just that. Others in the booming field capturing VC dollars include Skyhigh Networks, Lookout, and OpenDNS. And some have already been acquired: FireEye paid $1 billion for Mandiant this month, and another, Sourcefire, went to Cisco for $2.7 billion last year.
The pricetags are little wonder: The research firm Gartner projects an $87 billion market by 2016.
