Trend Micro has always been an advocate for a server-based approach to fighting viruses. But in recent weeks, the company has embraced a broader portfolio of products and technologies in the battle against security threats. Trend Micro CTO Eva Chen explained her company's new approach to security, especially the need to reach out to the edge of the network and beyond, in an interview with CRN Editor in Chief Michael Vizard.
CRN: How would you describe Trend Micro's overall approach to security, and how is it changing?
CHEN: I always start with where the overall computer infrastructure is going and then try to place us where we should be in the overall picture. Trend Micro has been a server-based antivirus company. I would say that is evolving. Nowadays, the whole world is a gigantic TCP/IP network. You can hardly tell where there is a boundary. The first point of contact is the network, so that is where to put your security management.
CRN: Given that, how is Trend Micro changing?
CHEN: For antivirus, there are several things to consider. First is where to detect, and second is where to do the control. We are moving the control from client and the server to the gateway.
CRN: How does that change the security management equation?
CHEN: The other thing we are thinking about is outbreak prevention. We always say we are in the antivirus business. But I was so frustrated that I called our CEO, Steve Chang, and said we've been lying to our customers for 10 years. We call ourselves antivirus, but we have never prevented a virus from hitting our customers. None of the antivirus vendors have ever done that. From that day, we started to rethink the whole business about antivirus. We've come up with this whole idea that antivirus is not just about prevention. It's about monitoring, isolation and risk minimization. You need to put in something where you can help customers do damage control. If they get hit, you want to isolate the infected area. And finally there is recovery. You need to have some way to do recovery.
CRN: There is a saying that says to be forewarned is to be forearmed. How do you monitor what's happening on the Internet?
CHEN: The monitoring system is a very exciting project that I was driving. I call it collaborative antivirus. Trend Micro has been focusing on antivirus for so many years that the most important asset we've got is our knowledge about virus behavior. All the information we collect is sent back to our control manager and our server in our labs. Once we detect something, we can respond in 45 minutes.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
