Spyware is a hot topic. Legislators, security professionals, business people, prosecutors, IT staffs, executives, and consumers (grandmothers and schoolchildren) all know about spyware ? and its deleterious impact on privacy, security, and productivity. The rampant growth of spyware is driven by strong spyware developer skills, and more importantly, investment from advertisers and organized crime. Unfortunately, few organizations can effectively and efficiently halt the influx of spyware into their networks. Existing enterprise defenses are not capable of defending organizations against the spyware threat. Unfortunately, many of the proposed new defenses against spyware are reactive (only effective against installed spyware), incomplete, and/or difficult to manage. An ideal enterprise solution will not only stop spyware before it installs, but it will be capable of detecting and removing spyware already in place. Furthermore, this solution cannot represent a significant management challenge, nor can it impede the business process.

Blue Coat?s new anti-spyware solution is preventative ? and thus will stop spyware from installing on enterprise desktops. Blue Coat?s solution also copes with existing installs of spyware. It does all of this as a gateway-installed solution, which is both high-performance, and flexible enough to defend against spyware, without impeding the business process.

Spyware, like other information security threats, will continue to evolve, and incorporate new and different installation and information gathering techniques. As such, any enterprise solution should embrace defense-in-depth, and be powerful and flexible enough to cope with the unpredictable evolution of threats.