Sunbelt Software Upgrades VIPRE Enterprise, Adds Premium Edition

Version 4.0 delivers enhanced security, manageability features; extends performance benefits to larger enterprises, managed service providers.

  • 03/03/2010
Note: ESJ’s editors carefully choose vendor-issued press releases about new or upgraded products and services. We have edited and/or condensed this release to highlight key features but make no claims as to the accuracy of the vendor's statements.

Sunbelt Software has expanded its VIPRE Enterprise product line with a new, highly-scalable management console, a new client agent, and a new optional premium edition that includes advanced firewall protection. The new releases offer comprehensive endpoint protection for enterprises of all sizes and are part of a significant technology platform upgrade to all the company’s endpoint security products. It provides administrators with endpoint protection that can scale to support large and complex environments.

VIPRE Enterprise 4.0

The redesigned VIPRE Enterprise 4.0 management console delivers extensive new functionality to support large enterprises and managed service providers (MSPs) that include multi-site management and role-based access control.

VIPRE Enterprise 4.0 architecture delivers a highly scalable and flexible multi-site tiering model. This new functionality provides system administrators and managed service providers the ability to manage medium and large-scale infrastructures with multiple offices and locations. Multiple sites can be controlled from one central console by tiering through granular role-based access control or multi-site configuration.

The VIPRE Enterprise 4.0 agent includes extensive under-the-hood improvements. Notable enhancements are improved support for removable drives; enhanced support for 64-bit environments, including a 64-bit boot cleaner and 64-bit rootkit scanner; support for Mozilla Firefox Scan Extensions, and other overall quality improvements to improve efficiency and performance.

Combined with the new VIPRE client agent, enterprises with complex environments now have all the performance benefits of VIPRE.

VIPRE Enterprise Premium 4.0

The new, optional Premium edition combines VIPRE’s antivirus and antispyware protection and adds desktop firewall, malicious Web site filtering, intrusion detection system(IDS), host intrusion prevention(HIPS), and many other powerful features into a single agent.

In designing the Premium edition, Sunbelt’s engineers focused on a product tightly focused on malware protection instead of loading it with features that administrators often prefer to purchase separately or are already built in to the operating system. Core features include:

  • Two-way firewall: Based on the company’s Sunbelt Personal Firewall technology, the new, fully integrated bi-directional desktop firewall supports 32- and 64-bit environments and protects users from any unwanted incoming and outgoing traffic.

  • Web filtering: Because most threats are Web-borne, the Web filtering module provides vital protection against a wide range of Web-based attacks with options that include:

    • Malicious URL Filtering: Leveraging Sunbelt’s ThreatTrack database of malicious URLs, malicious URL filtering provides an additional layer of protection against the rapidly evolving online threat environment; updated by Sunbelt’s malware research labs, ThreatTrack is used by numerous leading security organizations
    • Ad blocking: Blocks many third-party advertisements from ever appearing while surfing
    • Anti-phishing: Blocks access to known phishing websites by email or through the web browser
    • Script blocking: Blocks Javascript, VBScript, and ActiveX controls
    • Cookie settings: Filters persistent cookies, session cookies, foreign cookies, and referral information from an originating Web site

  • IDS: The desktop IDS functionality of VIPRE provides an additional layer of protection against a range of both inbound and outbound malicious Internet traffic (such as an attempted exploit); administrators can choose from an array of built-in IDS rules or create new rules based on the industry-standard SNORT language

  • HIPS: The HIPS functionality protects against an attack vector known as code injection, where an application attempts to “ride-along” with the credentials of another application to exploit a system

Pricing and Availability

Both versions of VIPRE Enterprise are currently available; one year of support, updates, and product upgrades is included.

Customers of the existing VIPRE Enterprise 3.1 on an existing maintenance plan will receive the new VIPRE Enterprise 4.0 at no charge. An upgrade to VIPRE Enterprise Premium is available for a nominal fee.

New customers can purchase VIPRE Enterprise Premium on a per-machine basis. Pricing includes the first year maintenance and starts at $28.36 per seat for 100 workstations with a sliding scale volume discount based on number of machines. A 50 percent competitive upgrade program is also in effect. VIPRE is compatible with both 32- and 64 bit version of Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. 30-day evaluations of both versions of VIPRE Enterprise are available at www.sunbeltsoftware.com.

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