A result of Trend Micro's acquisition of Intermute in 2005 (who formerly offered the SpySubtract line of products), Trend Micro Anti-Spyware Enterprise Edition is spyware monitoring and cleansing software that is installed on individual desktops throughout the enterprise but can be centrally deployed (transparent push;, via domain mode and MSI) and managed. The architecture of the platform is such that enterprise servers handle the deployments to and management of the client machines they serve (up to 60,000 clients can be managed per server), while the servers themselves (up to 1,000) are managed via the Trend Micro Control Manager. (Trend Micro Control Manager--TMCM--is available to Trend Micro customers in a free, Standard Edition and a per-user-fee Enterprise Edition, which adds predefined and consolidated reporting; cascading management for hierarchical TMCM deployments; and support for Outbreak Prevention Policies.) Access to the management console is via a Web browser interface; both the server and the client machines require Windows as the operating system. Servers can automatically discover client machines, and communications between the servers and clients is protected by encryption (SSL).

According to the vendor, the product is compatible with any anti-virus product.

At the client side, both real-time monitoring of spyware threats (preventing potential spyware installations) and scheduled or on-demand system scans are possible; with detection based both on an automatically updated signature database and heuristic rule sets. The vendor's "Trickle Scan" technology automatically reduces the scanner's CPU usage while other desktop applications are in progress, and the client can restore programs, system settings, and browser settings during cleaning. A specific tool, the Trend Micro CWShredder, is included to target the CoolWebSearch program and its variants.

New to this release is the Rootkit Common Module, which bypasses potentially compromised Windows APIs to detect hidden and potentially malicious files, processes, and registry entries.

From the server, administrators can define central policies to be honored at the client level; either via a single policy to govern all clients, or via designation by groups, domains, or other descriptors. Policy options include those for scan scheduling, definition updates, cleaning, and monitoring; custom whitelist definitions per policy; and the ability to alert administrators via E-mail when spyware has been detected.

Reporting options can be utilized as consolidated data for all enterprise servers (with TMCM), or at the individual server level itself. Data can be exported from the TMCM in PDF, RTF, and CSV formats. Event log data tracks all desktop scans, cleanings, restores, and other system events.

Trend Micro Anti-Spyware Enterprise Edition is available now in North America, with a suggested price of $11.55/user for a 501 user license. A TMCM Enterprise Edition license is priced at 2.98/user for 1001 users.

Contact Trend Micro for further information.