McAfee Releases Security Platform for Amazon Alexa

Recently at the Mobile World Congress event, McAfee announced their plan to launch of the new McAfee Secure Home Platform skill for Amazon Alexa. Soon, customers with a McAfee Secure Home Platform enabled router will be able to use their voice to easily manage their connected home’s network security.

The platform provides a built-in layer of security that automatically protects internet-connected devices on the home network from various threats, and also provides robust parental controls.

It is imperitive that security is extended to the connected devices in consumer’s homes with the growing amount of personal information flowing between their Internet of Thing (IoT) devices – their game consoles, thermostats, home security systems, for example.

The platform helps consumers avoid cybercriminals with a proactive approach.

Consumers can use the Alexa Skill to ask McAfee:

• How many devices are online right now
• To scan the network
• The status of the network
• To block/unblock devices
• Pause the internet for Children

Read the full announcement here.

It will be interesting to see if this capability will carry over into businesses that are using IoT devices in the workplace. Businesses are/will be able to utilise IoT improve operations, understand customer/employee behaviour better, access to greater data and much more. IoT has been decribed as “the next Industrial Revolution”.

Products like industrial sensors, connected manufacturing machines, in-store analysis devices and workspace management applications are already on the market. These B2B IoT devices will fundamentally transform the way organizations do business with other companies. Sparklabs predicts an exponential increase in this space—from 2.5 billion connections in 2017 to 5.4 billion devices in 2020, says Vision Critical. They also suggest that total business spend on IoT solutions will reach $6 trillion by 2021.

In the meantime if you business is in need of any endpoint protection take a look at our McAfee catalogue or call us on +44 (0) 1364 654100 to find out about the McAfee (and other) security solutions we provide.