NAI launches hosted anti-virus service

Companies managing their own anti-virus protection could soon become a thing of the past, according to security vendor Network Associates (NAI).

The company is this week launching its application service provider (ASP), myCIO.com, in the UK, promising its customers complete anti-virus protection without the cost and trouble of installation and maintenance.

NAI is the latest in a line of vendors to offer hosted applications on the Internet and one of the first to offer security services. This week's launch follows a successful introduction in the US and trial period in Europe. The company plans to add hosted firewall services to its UK offering by the end of the month.

According to Zach Nelson, myCIO.com president and CEO, traditional anti-virus software "in a box" could soon become obsolete. Nelson said he can see NAI dealing purely in hosting services within the next five years.

"Anti-virus is naturally a service business," he said. "Security is an ongoing problem not a single event, which is exactly what the ASP model is designed for."

According to Nelson, interest in hosted security services has increased since the spate of distributed denial-of-service attacks earlier this year, which took down high-profile sites such as CNN and Yahoo!.

"Worldwide over 40,000 companies signed up to our free Cybercop Zombie Scan service," he said. "We found 50 agents in the wild - half of which were in Europe."

Research by Ovum for the ASP Industry Consortium released this week predicted 66 per cent of British and German companies will be using hosted services in the next 18 months. The study also revealed a quarter of respondents are already using ASPs for payroll, Web site and email applications.