6/8/2004 -- Yesterday, Cisco Systems announced a joint security collaboration with Trend Micro, provider of anti-virus solutions for Internet gateways and e-mail servers.

To some extent, this agreement picks up on the Network Admission Control (NAC) program that the networking giant unveiled last November. Trend Micro was a vendor partner in NAC – along with anti-virus and security software specialists Network Associates and Symantec. But the extended partnership between the two companies goes one further, however, in terms of ratcheting up integration between Cisco’s and Trend’s respective products, officials say.

“While NAC focuses on using the network to enforce end-point protection policy, the new collaboration with Trend Micro will work on integrating its network-based anti-virus technology into our networking equipment,” explained Richard Palmer, vice-president and general manager of Cisco’s VPN and Security business unit, in an online interview posted to Cisco’s site.

Palmer stated that the combined solutions which Cisco and Trend expect to deliver will enable a range of pro-active scenarios that aren’t possible using standalone offerings. “Much of our combined efforts will focus on creating an ‘outbreak prevention’ system that can not only stop worms and cleanse potential infections from a network but can also help companies analyze their networks for vulnerabilities, in the process making them better prepared to withstand future attacks,” he said.

First up, officials say, is integration between Trend Micro's network worm and virus signatures with Cisco’s Intrusion Detection System (IDS) software, which is supported in IOS. What's more, Cisco will license additional technology from Trend Micro to support vulnerability assessment, outbreak-prevention, and damage clean-up across the range of its networking devices, officials said.

The two companies say they’ll complete the integration of Cisco’s IDS with Trend’s antivirus technologies by Q3 of 2004. Farther out, Cisco expects to integrate Trend’s vulnerability assessment, outbreak-prevention, and damage clean-up technologies by early in 2005. -Stephen Swoyer