Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 Released: Converging Desktop Security and Management

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Today, many organizations have separate endpoint security and management infrastructures, which requires two sets of maintenance efforts, policies, and incident response procedures. 

Microsoft today announced the release of Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 (FEP), the next generation of Forefront Client Security, to help customers align the disciplines of client security and management.  By taking advantage of this converged infrastructure, organizations can improve desktop protection and lower operational costs.

Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 is deployed, configured, managed, updated, and reported on through System Center Configuration Manager 2007. This single infrastructure for security and management provides IT administrators with:

  • Consolidated tools, processes, and infrastructure to create new efficiencies and reduce desktop ownership costs.
  • A unified view of device configuration and security information to identify and remediate vulnerabilities more easily.

Additional new features in FEP include a new antivirus engine for efficient threat detection against the latest malware and rootkits, protection against "unknown" or "zero day" threats through behavior monitoring and emulation, and Windows Firewall management.

Check out the Forefront Team blog for more details and evaluation/purchase information. Customers can download evaluation versions of FEP here.  For more information about the convergence of client security and management, please visit the new Windows Optimized Desktop website.