Intel and McAfee had been collaborating for about 18 months on a prior alliance, aimed at developing McAfee software that exploits features that have already been added to Intel chips including a technology that protects data on a laptop in the event that it is stolen.
Stuxnet is less of an espionage tool than a way of sabotaging targeted infrastructure, but it does so in a hard-to-detect manner that exploits commercial software utilized throughout the world.
Those automated tools could help prevent the sort of exploits that planted malicious software on the Wall Street Journal and Jerusalem Post Web sites last month, and the attacks seemingly based in China that hit half a million sites in 2008.
IBM's Web focus also exploits the timely appeal that software-as-a-service has to IT managers' wallets in the midst of the current economic downturn, says IDC Research Analyst Frank Genz.
Vupen is just one of a number of companies that have created controversy in the security community by profiting from zero-day exploits rather than working with software firms to fix the hackable vulnerabilities they use.
Just as important, the platform will host exploits only for known vulnerabilities, not so-called zero day exploits--new attacks for which software companies haven't yet issued fixes.
Miscreants use these exploits to turn compromised websites into platforms for silently installing keyloggers and other types of malicious software on the computers of unsuspecting visitors.