Microsoft Forefront Client Security

Microsoft's new, commercial Forefront Client Security (formerly known as Microsoft Client Protection) is designed to compete against the industry established players, such as McAfee, Symantec, and Trend Micro in the unified threat management arena. Forefront leverages several other Microsoft product technologies (for example, Windows Defender, OneCare, and so on), but can be distributed as a single client agent and managed using Active Directory. Microsoft SQL Server is used by Forefront as the event collection and reporting system. The agent can be deployed on Windows 2000 and above. The central management console allows centralized configuration and reporting.

Historically, Microsoft's previous forays into the antivirus industry have not been competitive or well received. However, this time Microsoft is taking a very strategic and dedicated approach to client security.