The History of McAfee

McAfee is an American global computer security software company based in Santa Clara, California, and claims to be the world's largest technology security company.

The company was acquired by Intel in February 2011 and joined the Intel Security division.

On September 7, 2016, Intel announced a strategic agreement with TPG Capital to transform Intel Security into a joint venture between the two companies called McAfee. This transaction was completed on April 3, 2017. Thoma Bravo acquired a minority interest in the new company and Intel retains a 49% interest.

The company was founded in 1987 as McAfee Associates, named after its founder John McAfee, who left the company in 1994. McAfee was founded in 1992 in the state of Delaware. Network Associates was founded in 1997 through the merger of McAfee Associates, Network General, PGP Corporation and Helix Software.

The company was restructured in 2004, beginning with the sale of its Magic Solutions business to Remedy, a subsidiary of BMC Software, earlier this year. In mid-2004, the company sold the Sniffer Technologies business to a venture capital company called Network General and changed its name to McAfee to reflect its focus on security-related technologies.

Other companies bought and sold by McAfee include Trusted Information Systems, which developed the Firewall Toolkit, the free software base for the commercial Gauntlet Firewall, which was then sold to Secure Computing Corporation.

McAfee has had a significant impact on the world of open source software due to the short ownership of TIS Labs / NAI Labs / Network Associates Laboratories / McAfee Research, as this organization has produced parts of the Linux, FreeBSD and Darwin operating systems. and developed parts of the BIND name server software and SNMP version 3.

McAfee acquired FSA Corporation from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which helped the company move its security offerings not only to client-based antivirus software, but also to its own network and office encryption technologies.

The FSA team also oversaw the development of a number of other cutting-edge technologies at that time, including firewalls, file encryption and key infrastructure product lines. public While these product lines have had their own success, including PowerBroker, the growth of antivirus products has always surpassed that of other security product lines. We can rightly say that McAfee is even more known for its antivirus and antispam products.

On August 19, 2010, Intel announced that it would buy McAfee for $ 48 per share, valued at $ 7.68 billion.

On January 6, 2014, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced the name change from McAfee Security to Intel Security at the Consumer Electronics Show. The company's Red Shield logo would remain, and the company would continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel. John McAfee, who is no longer involved in the business, was glad that his name was no longer associated with the software. As of 2016, however, the products were still called McAfee.

The company separated from Intel on April 4, 2017.