New beta of Microsoft Security Essentials released with network protection

Microsoft has today both announced and released a beta version of its free Security Essentials anti-malware software. The new version of the lightweight anti-virus, anti-spyware software includes more protection against network-based attacks.

The network protection has two parts. Microsft Security Essentials now integrates with Internet Explorer to better protect against web-based threats. This allows the program to prevent malicious scripts from running. The current version can detect such scripts when they get written to Internet Explorer's cache, but that may be too late to protect the user.