Cisco via its Linksys brand wants to protect you from the bad guys that are lurking on the Internet. To that end, they’ve signed a deal with Trend Micro to stuff their technology into Linksys routers:
This multi-layered security offering helps provide network protection for family PCs and other home-network devices, such as online game consoles, Wi-Fi enabled phones, and personal media players. This collaboration has led to the introduction of Home Network Defender, an Internet security service from Trend Micro that features Safe Web Surfing capabilities, parental controls, and user-activity reporting embedded on select Linksys by Cisco wireless-N home routers. Home Network Defender helps to detect and eradicate Web threats such as online fraud, scams, phishing schemes, predators and viruses before they enter the home network.
I have to admit that this is a great idea. I find that most users don’t do enough to protect themselves from online threats until something bad happens. So having protection like this at the edge of your home network and making it easy to implement pretty much guarntees that nothing bad will happen.
Watch for products with this technology to start appearing on store shelves shortly.