Hackers. Viruses. Botnets. Threats continue to plague computer systems around the world. FireEye Inc. of Milpitas, Calif., is this year's Information-Security winner for an advanced malware-protection system that guards against the latest in cyberattacks.

FireEye's Malware Protection System FireEye

"Zero-day attacks," which exploit previously unknown vulnerabilities, are a significant hazard to sensitive corporate and government networks. Traditional malware protection isn't effective against these threats because it is designed to look for previously recognized "signatures" in the malware code or already identified malicious websites.

FireEye's Malware Protection System takes a two-step approach to counter these threats: First it identifies anomalies in email attachments, shared files or websites, flagging anything that looks suspicious. Suspect programs are tested in a virtual environment to see if they in fact are harmful; if so, the threats are isolated and disabled. The method is effective at blocking attacks without a lot of false positives and at identifying the source of attacks, a feature that has helped authorities take down some botnets, or networks of controlled computers used to distribute spam.


Palo Alto Networks Inc., Santa Clara, Calif.: Anti-malware software that detects and blocks attack by routing threats to a cloud-based virtual environment where they can be trapped and analyzed.

CloudPassage Inc., San Francisco: Software for securing cloud-based servers.