Company:McAfee

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McAfee Corp.
TypePrivate, formerly Public until 2011 and again 2020-2022, then Intel subsidiary from 2011 to 2017
NASDAQ: MCFE (2020-2022)

NYSE: MFE (1992-2011)

S&P 500 component (until 2011)
IndustryComputer software
PredecessorIntel Security Group (spun off)
Founded1987; 39 years ago (1987)[1] as McAfee Associates, Inc.
2017; 9 years ago (2017) as McAfee, LLC
FounderJohn McAfee
HeadquartersSan Jose, California, U.S.
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Craig Boundy (president and CEO)
ProductsCybersecurity software
ServicesComputer security
RevenueDecrease US$1.92 billion (2021)[2][needs update]
Owner
  • Advent International
  • Permira
Number of employees
1,800+ (2023)[3]
Websitemcafee.com

McAfee Corp. (/ˈmækəfiː/ MAK-ə-fee),[4][5] formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American proprietary software company focused on online protection for consumers worldwide headquartered in San Jose, California.

The company was purchased by Intel in February 2011;[6][7][8] with this acquisition, it became part of the Intel Security division. In 2017, Intel had a strategic deal with TPG Capital and converted Intel Security into a joint venture between both companies called McAfee.[9][10] Thoma Bravo took a minority stake in the new company, and Intel retained a 49% stake.[11][12] The owners took McAfee public on the NASDAQ in 2020, and in 2022 an investor group led by Advent International Corporation took it private again.[13]

History

Former McAfee logo with the Intel byline

1987–1999

The company was founded in 1987 as McAfee Associates, named for its founder John McAfee, who resigned from the company in 1994.[14] McAfee was incorporated in the state of Delaware in 1992. In 1993, McAfee stepped down as head of the company, taking the position of chief technology officer before his eventual resignation. Bill Larson was appointed CEO in his place. Network Associates was formed in 1997 as a merger of McAfee Associates, Network General, PGP Corporation and Helix Software.

In 1996, McAfee acquired Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based FSA Corporation, which helped the company diversify its security offerings away from just client-based antivirus software by bringing on board its own network and desktop encryption technologies.

The FSA team also oversaw the creation of a number of other technologies that were leading edge at the time, including firewall, file encryption, and public key infrastructure product lines. While those product lines had their own individual successes including PowerBroker (written by Dean Huxley and Dan Freedman and now sold by BeyondTrust), the growth of antivirus ware always outpaced the growth of the other security product lines. It is fair to say that McAfee remains best known for its anti-virus and anti-spam products.

Among other companies bought and sold by McAfee is Trusted Information Systems, which developed the Firewall Toolkit, the free software foundation for the commercial Gauntlet Firewall, which was later sold to Secure Computing Corporation. McAfee acquired Trusted Information Systems under the banner of Network Associates in 1998.


2000–2009

In 2000, McAfee/Network Associates was the leading authority in educating and protecting people against the Love Bug or ILOVEYOU virus, one of the most destructive computer viruses in history.[15]

At the end of 2000, CEO Bill Larson, President Peter Watkins, and CFO Prabhat Goyal all resigned after the company sustained losses.[16] Company president Gene Hodges served as interim CEO before George Samenuk was appointed CEO in 2001.[17][18]

The company returned to its original name in July 2004.[19] It restructured, beginning with the sale of its Magic Solutions business to Remedy, a subsidiary of BMC Software early in the year.[20] In mid-2004, the company sold the Sniffer Technologies business to a venture capital backed firm named Network General (the same name as the original owner of Sniffer Technologies), and changed its name back to McAfee to reflect its focus on security-related technologies.[21]

In 2006, Dale Fuller became interim CEO when Samenuk resigned and President Kevin Weiss was fired after the company was accused of questionable stock options practices.[22] David DeWalt took over as CEO on April 2, 2007.[23]

In 2007, McAfee launched the Security Innovation Alliance (SIA), a program focused on cultivating partnerships with other tech companies and integrating third-party technology with McAfee's security and compliance risk management technology.[24] On March 11, 2008, McAfee announced a license agreement with the US Department of Defense. This agreement allowed the DoD to integrate McAfee's Virus Scan Enterprise and Anti-Spyware Enterprise into the Defense Information Systems Agency's cyber-security solutions.[25]

2010–2020

On April 21, 2010, McAfee sent out a bad anti-virus update (DAT 5958) that crippled millions of corporate and consumer Windows-based computers.

On August 19, 2010, Intel announced that it would purchase McAfee for $48 a share in a deal valued at $7.68 billion.[26][27] In September 2016, Intel announced their strategic partnership with TPG to turn McAfee into an independent cyber-security company as a joint venture. That deal closed on April 3, 2017.[28]

CEO David DeWalt resigned in 2011, and McAfee appointed Michael DeCesare and Todd Gebhart as co-presidents.[29] In 2011, McAfee also partnered with SAIC to develop anti-cyber espionage products for use by government and intelligence agencies, along with telecommunications companies.[30]

On January 6, 2014, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced during the Consumer Electronics Show the name change from McAfee Security to Intel Security. The company's red shield logo would remain, with the firm continuing to operate as a wholly owned Intel subsidiary.[31] John McAfee, who no longer had any involvement in the company, expressed his pleasure at his name no longer being associated with the software. However, as of 2016 the products still bore the McAfee name.

On September 7, 2016, Intel sold its majority stake to TPG and entered into an agreement with TPG to turn Intel Security into a jointly owned, independent cyber-security company with the McAfee name.[32]

After the deal between the two companies closed, the company was spun back out of Intel on April 4, 2017."[33] Chris Young assumed the CEO position as the company became an independent entity.[34]

In 2018, the company unsuccessfully entered talks to sell majority control of McAfee to minority stakeholder Thoma Bravo.[35] In 2018, McAfee also expanded its Security Innovation Alliance partnerships to include companies such as Atos, CyberX, Fidelis Cyber-security, Aujas, and Silver Peak.[36]

In July 2019, McAfee began meeting with bankers to discuss returning to the market as an IPO.[37] As an IPO, the company was estimated to be valued at $8 billion or higher. However, no deal or decision to join the public market was confirmed.[38]

Near the end of 2019, McAfee partnered with Google Cloud to integrate McAfee's Mvision Cloud and endpoint security technology with Google's cloud infrastructure.[39]

In October 2020, McAfee and its shareholders raised $740 million in the initial public offering and valued at about $8.6 billion based on the outstanding shares listed in its prospectus. McAfee shares were traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange under ticker symbol MCFE, marked its return to the public market after 9 years.[40] In 2020, former McAfee CEO Chris Young left his position and was replaced by Peter Leav.[41] However, the stock was delisted from NASDAQ and the company was taken private again in March 2022 by a multi-national investor group under the Advent International Corporation, consisting of the Canada Pension Plan, the Singaporean GIC Private Limited, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.[42]

2021–present

In July 2021, McAfee completed the sale of its enterprise business. This transaction allowed McAfee to singularly focus on its consumer business and accelerate its strategy to be the leader in online protection for consumers.[43]

In May 2022, Peter Leav stepped down and McAfee named Greg Johnson its new CEO.[44]

In 2023 Greg Johnson stepped down as CEO and in July 2024 McAfee appointed Craig Boundy as president and chief executive officer.[45]

In October 2022, McAfee partnered with Visa to provide cybersecurity solutions to cardholders worldwide, expanding its reach in consumer protection.[46]

In early 2024, McAfee launched an AI-driven threat detection system, enhancing real-time protection against evolving cyber threats.[47]

In February 2024, the company expanded its identity theft protection services, integrating new tools for monitoring and fraud prevention.

In August 2024, McAfee introduced deepfake detector to combat fraud.[48]

In October 2024, McAfee partnered with Yahoo News who integrated McAfee's detection technology into its content quality system. When McAfee's tool identifies an image that may be AI-generated, it flags it for review and validation by the Yahoo News editorial standards team.[49]

In May 2025, McAfee introduced its AI-powered McAfee's Scam Detector which automatically identifies and flags scam attempts across text, email, and video on mobile devices and Windows PCs.[50]

In May 2025, McAfee started an initiative to drive awareness, education, and empathy around scams called Keep it Real. This initiative combines thought-provoking ads with Scam Stories, a movement inviting survivors to share their experiences online, on social, or with McAfee directly. Amplifying real voices reduces stigma and helps people recognize red flags to stay safer online.[51]

Products

McAfee primarily develops consumer online protection services to protect a user's online identity, privacy as well as their Windows, Mac and mobile devices.

McAfee brands, products and sub-products include:

Current products

  • McAfee+ Premium[52]
  • McAfee+ Advanced[52]
  • McAfee+ Ultimate[52]
  • McAfee Total Protection[53]
  • McAfee LiveSafe[54]
  • McAfee Business Protection
  • McAfee Safe Connect VPN[55]
  • McAfee Mobile Security for Android[56]
  • McAfee Mobile Security for iOS[57]
  • McAfee Virus Removal Service[58]
  • McAfee Safe Family[52]
  • McAfee TrueKey[59]
  • McAfee WebAdvisor[60]
  • McAfee Deepfake Detector[61]

Renamed products

  • McAfee WebAdvisor instead of SiteAdvisor[53]

Former products

  • McAfee VirusScan Enterprise (Changed from McAfee VirusScan)[62]
  • McAfee Network Security Platform (Changed from IntruShield)[63]
  • McAfee Application and Change Control (Changed from McAfee Change Control)[64]
  • McAfee E-Business Servers
  • McAfee Entercept[65]

Acquisitions

McAfee building in North Sydney

Dr Solomon's Group plc

On June 9, 1998, Network Associates agreed to acquire Dr Solomon's Group plc, the leading European manufacturer of antivirus software, for $642 million in stock.[66][67]

IntruVert Networks

On April 2, 2003, McAfee acquired IntruVert Networks for $100 million. According to Network World, "IntruVert's technology focus is on intrusion-prevention, which entails not just detecting attacks, but blocking them. The IntruVert product line can be used as a passive intrusion-detection system, just watching and reporting, or it can be used in the intrusion-prevention mode of blocking a perceived attack."[68]

Foundstone

In August 2004, McAfee agreed to acquire Foundstone, a vendor of security consulting, training, and vulnerability management software, for $86 million.[69]

SiteAdvisor

On April 5, 2006, McAfee bought out SiteAdvisor for a reputed $70 million[70] in competition with Symantec, a service that warns users if downloading software or filling out forms on a site may obtain malware or spam.

Preventsys

On June 6, 2006, McAfee announced that it would acquire Preventsys, a California-based company offering security risk management products. The acquisition cost McAfee under $10 million.[71]

Onigma Ltd

On October 16, 2006, McAfee announced that it would acquire Israel based Onigma Ltd for $20 million.[72] Onigma provides host-based data leakage protection software that prevents intentional and unintentional leakage of sensitive data by internal users.

SafeBoot Holding B.V.

On October 8, 2007, McAfee announced it would acquire SafeBoot Holding B.V. for $350 million.[73] SafeBoot provided mobile data security solutions that protected data, devices, and networks against the risk associated with loss, theft, and unauthorized access. Through the acquisition, McAfee became the only vendor to deliver endpoint, network, web, email and data security, as well as risk and compliance solutions. Gerhard Watzinger, CEO of SafeBoot, joined McAfee to lead the Data Protection product business unit.[74] The deal closed on November 19, 2007.

ScanAlert

On October 30, 2007, McAfee announced plans to acquire ScanAlert for $51 million. The acquisition integrated ScanAlert's Hacker Safe service and McAfee's SiteAdvisor rating system to attack website security from both sides.[75] It was the industry's first service to help consumers stay safe as they searched, surfed and shopped. The deal closed on February 7, 2008.[76]

Reconnex

On July 31, 2008, McAfee announced it would acquire Reconnex, a maker of data protection appliances and software. Reconnex sold data loss prevention software, designed to prevent sensitive documents and data from leaving corporate networks.[77] The acquisition added content awareness to McAfee's data security portfolio.[78] The $46 million deal closed on August 12, 2008.

Secure Computing

On September 22, 2008, McAfee announced an agreement to acquire Secure Computing, a company specializing in network security hardware, services, and software products. The acquisition expanded McAfee's business in securing networks and cloud computing services to offer a more comprehensive brand of products. The deal closed on November 19, 2008, at a price of $497 million.

Endeavor

In January 2009, McAfee announced plans to acquire Endeavor Security, a privately held maker of IPS/IDS technology.[79] The deal closed in February 2009 for a total purchase price of $3.2 million.

Solidcore Systems

On May 15, 2009, McAfee announced its intention acquire Solidcore Systems, a privately held security company, for $33 million.[80] Solidcore was a maker of software that helped companies protect ATMs and other specialized computers. The acquisition integrated Solidcore's whitelisting and compliance enforcement mechanisms into the McAfee product line.[81] The deal closed on June 1, 2009.[82]

MX Logic

On July 30, 2009, McAfee announced plans to acquire managed email and web security vendor MX Logic. The acquisition provided an enhanced range of SaaS-based security services such as cloud-based intelligence, web security, email security, endpoint security and vulnerability assessment.[83] The deal closed on September 1, 2009, at a price of $140 million.[84] MX Logic staff were integrated into McAfee's SaaS business unit.

Trust Digital

On May 25, 2010, McAfee announced a definitive agreement to acquire Trust Digital, a privately held online security company that specialized in security for mobile devices. The acquisition allowed McAfee to extend its services beyond traditional endpoint security and move into the mobile security market.[85] The acquisition closed on June 3, 2010.[86] The price for Trust Digital was not disclosed.[87]

TenCube

On July 29, 2010, McAfee announced a definitive agreement to acquire tenCube, a privately held online security company that specialized in anti-theft and data security for mobile devices.[88] The acquisition allowed McAfee to complete its diversification into the mobile security space, and announce its plans to build the next generation mobile platform. The acquisition closed on August 25, 2010.

Sentrigo

On March 23, 2011, McAfee announced its intention to acquire privately owned Sentrigo,[89] a leading provider of database security, including vulnerability management, database activity monitoring, database audit, and virtual patching—which ensure databases are protected without impacting performance or availability. The acquisition enabled McAfee to extend its database security portfolio. The acquisition closed on April 6, 2011.[90][91]

NitroSecurity

On October 4, 2011, McAfee announced its intention to acquire privately owned NitroSecurity,[92] a developer of high-performance security information and event management (SIEM) solutions that protect critical information and infrastructure. NitroSecurity solutions reduce risk exposure and increase network and information availability by removing the scalability and performance limitations of security information management. The acquisition closed on November 30, 2011.[93]

ValidEdge

On February 26, 2013, McAfee announced it had acquired the ValidEdge sandboxing technology.[94]

Stonesoft

On July 8, 2013, McAfee completed the tender offer for Finnish network firewall design company Stonesoft Oyj worth $389 million in cash, or about $6.09 a share.[95] The Next Generation Firewall business acquired from Stonesoft was divested to Forcepoint in January 2016.[96][97]

PasswordBox

On December 1, 2014, Intel Security announced the acquisition of PasswordBox, a Montreal-based provider of digital identity management solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed.[98]

Skyhigh Networks

In November 2017, McAfee acquired Skyhigh Networks, a CASB security company.[99] The acquisition closed January 3, 2018.[100] In March 2021, Symphony Technology Group acquired McAfee Enterprise, including Skyhigh Networks. In January 2022, STG announced that McAfee Enterprise's security service edge (SSE) business would operate as a separate company to be known as Skyhigh Security, built on McAfee Enterprise and Skyhigh Networks.[101]

TunnelBear

In March 2018, McAfee acquired TunnelBear, a Canadian VPN service.[102]

Uplevel Security

In July 2019, Uplevel Security, a data analytics company using graph theory and machine learning, announced it had been acquired by McAfee.[103]

NanoSec

In August 2019, McAfee acquired NanoSec, a container security company.[104]

Controversies

Channel stuffing lawsuit

On January 4, 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against McAfee for overstating its 1998–2000 net revenue by US$622,000,000.[105] Without admitting any wrongdoing, McAfee simultaneously settled the complaint, and agreed to pay a $50 million penalty and rework its accounting practices.[106] The fine was for accounting fraud; known as channel stuffing that served to inflate their revenue to their investors.[106]

SEC investigation into share options

In October 2006, McAfee fired its president Kevin Weiss,[107] and its CEO George Samaneuk resigned under the cloud of a recent SEC investigation which also caused the departure of Kent Roberts, the General Counsel, earlier in the year. In late December 2006 both Weiss and Samaneuk had share option grant prices revised upwards by McAfee's board. Weiss and Roberts were both exonerated by an arbitrator of all wrongdoing from the claims of McAfee in 2009.[108][109][110]

DAT 5958 update

On April 21, 2010, beginning at approximately 14:00 UTC, millions of computers worldwide running Windows XP Service Pack 3 were affected by an erroneous virus definition file update by McAfee, resulting in the removal of a Windows system file (svchost.exe) on those machines as it was falsely detecting the file as w32/wecorl.a, causing machines to lose network access, sometimes enter a reboot loop and, in some cases, bluescreen.[111] McAfee rectified this by removing and replacing the faulty DAT file, version 5958, with an emergency DAT file, version 5959 and has posted a fix for the affected machines in their consumer knowledge base.[112][113] The University of Michigan's medical school reported that 8,000 of its 25,000 computers crashed. Police in Lexington, Ky., resorted to hand-writing reports and turned off their patrol car terminals as a precaution. Some jails canceled visitation, and Rhode Island hospitals turned away non-trauma patients at emergency rooms and postponed some elective surgeries.[114] Australian supermarket Coles reported that 10% (1,100) of its point-of-sales terminals were affected and was forced to shut down stores in both western and southern parts of the country.[115] As a result of the outage, McAfee implemented additional QA protocols for any releases that directly impacted critical system files. The company also rolled out additional capabilities in Artemis that provide another level of protection against false positives by leveraging a whitelist of hands-off system files.[116]

DAT 6807-6808 update

In August 2012, an issue with an update to McAfee antivirus for home and enterprise computers turned off the antivirus protection and, in many cases, prevented connection to the Internet. McAfee was criticized for being slow to address the problem, forcing network operations to spend time diagnosing the issue.[117]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "About Us: Home and Home Office Anti Virus Software | McAfee". https://www.mcafee.com/en-us/consumer-corporate/about.html. 
  2. ↑ "Global net revenue of McAfee Corp. from 2018 to 2021". https://www.statista.com/statistics/305083/global-security-software-revenue-of-mcafee/. 
  3. ↑ "McAfee Fact Sheet". January 2023. https://www.mcafee.com/content/dam/consumer/en-us/docs/fact-sheets/fs-mcafee-fact-sheet.pdf. 
  4. ↑ How do you stay safe online? Live Your Live Online Confidently With McAfee. McAfee. 2022-03-02. Archived from the original on May 12, 2022. Retrieved 2022-05-12.
  5. ↑ McAfee's all-in-one protection, award winning antivirus to protect you from online threats. McAfee. 2022-03-02. Archived from the original on May 12, 2022. Retrieved 2022-05-12.
  6. ↑ "Palo Alto Networks is emerging as the lead vendor in the competitive network security market". 2020-07-20. https://www.analysysmason.com/research/content/articles/security-vendor-revenue-ren04/. 
  7. ↑ "Intel in $7.68bn McAfee takeover". BBC News. August 19, 2010. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11025866. 
  8. ↑ "Intel Completes Acquisition of McAfee" (in en-US). https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-completes-acquisition-of-mcafee/. 
  9. ↑ de la Merced, Michael J.; Hardy, Quentin (2016-09-07). "Intel Sells Majority Stake in McAfee Security Unit to TPG" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/business/dealbook/intel-sells-a-majority-stake-of-cybersecurity-unit-mcafee-to-tpg.html. 
  10. ↑ "A Brand New McAfee Commits to Building a Safer Future" (in en-US). https://newsroom.intel.com/news/brand-new-mcafee-commits-building-safer-future/. 
  11. ↑ "Intel sells McAfee security unit to TPG". Marketwatch. September 7, 2016. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/intel-nears-deal-to-sell-mcafee-security-unit-to-tpg-2016-09-07-151035827. 
  12. ↑ "Intel completes McAfee spinoff to sighs of relief at both companies" (in en-US). 2017-04-04. https://siliconangle.com/2017/04/04/intel-completes-mcafee-spinoff-sighs-relief-companies/. 
  13. ↑ Gunby, Becky (March 1, 2022). "Investor group led by Advent International and Permira completes acquisition of McAfee". Advent International. https://www.adventinternational.com/investor-group-led-by-advent-international-and-permira-completes-acquisition-of-mcafee/. 
  14. ↑ Bernabeo, Paul (2008). Inventors and Inventions, Volume 4. Marshall Cavendish. p. 1033. ISBN 978-0761477679. https://books.google.com/books?id=YcPvV893aXgC. Retrieved October 19, 2020. 
  15. ↑ Relations, IT Public (2000-05-09). "Network Associates breaks heart of Love Bug" (in en). https://www.itweb.co.za/content/raYAyqoV2B9MJ38N. 
  16. ↑ Bransten, Lisa (2000-12-27). "Network Associates Warns of Loss; CEO and Two Top Officers Quit" (in en-US). The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB977869849761814322. 
  17. ↑ GROSSMAN, LEV (2000-05-15). "Attack of the Love Bug" (in en-US). Time. ISSN 0040-781X. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2053699,00.html. Retrieved 2021-12-15. 
  18. ↑ Darwin, Trudy (2018-11-30). "IN MEMORIAM" (in en-GB). https://www.4bridgeworks.com/in-memoriam/. 
  19. ↑ "Deals: McAfee To Acquire Foundstone". The New York Times. Bloomberg News. 17 August 2004. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/17/business/technology-briefing-deals-mcafee-to-acquire-foundstone.html. 
  20. ↑ Subedi, Bimal. "McAfee Subscription free trial for 6 months". Bimal's Blog. https://www.subedibimal.com.np/2020/06/mcafee-antivirus-free-for-6-months.html. 
  21. ↑ Computer Desktop Encyclopedia (1981–2018). "McAfee". Pennsylvania (US): The Computer Language Co. Inc.. https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/mcafee. 
  22. ↑ Flynn, Laurie J. (2006-10-12). "2 More Executives Resign Over Options" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/technology/12options.html. 
  23. ↑ Naraine, Ryan. "McAfee gets fourth CEO in six years" (in en). https://www.zdnet.com/article/mcafee-gets-fourth-ceo-in-six-years/. 
  24. ↑ "McAfee launches Security Innovation Alliance". 2007-09-26. https://www.scmagazine.com/brief/-/mcafee-launches-security-innovation-alliance. 
  25. ↑ "StackPath". March 11, 2008. https://www.securityinfowatch.com/home/article/10561003/defense-information-systems-agency-disa-selects-mcafee-inc-to-provide-security-management-for-department-of-defense. 
  26. ↑ "Intel to Acquire McAfee". Intel Corporation. August 19, 2010. http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2010/08/19/intel-to-acquire-mcafee. 
  27. ↑ Steve Johnson (August 19, 2010). "2010: Intel to buy McAfee: Chip giant to acquire software maker for $7.68B – The Mercury News". http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_15826282/2010-intel-buy-mcafee-purchase-security-software. 
  28. ↑ "Intel and TPG Announcement". https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2016/09/CY-Letter-090716.pdf. 
  29. ↑ "McAfee chief resigns to pursue 'non-competitive CEO role'" (in en-US). 2011-07-12. https://venturebeat.com/2011/07/12/david-dewalt-resigns-mcafee/. 
  30. ↑ Espiner, Tom. "Saic and McAfee team up on cyber espionage products" (in en). https://www.zdnet.com/article/saic-and-mcafee-team-up-on-cyber-espionage-products/. 
  31. ↑ Harmsworth, Vere (January 7, 2014). "CES 2014: Intel's security rebranding sheds Mcafee name". The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/ces/10556534/CES-2014-Intels-security-rebranding-sheds-Mcafee-name.html. 
  32. ↑ de la Merced, Michael J.; Hardy, Quentin (2016-09-07). "Intel Sells Majority Stake in McAfee Security Unit to TPG" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/business/dealbook/intel-sells-a-majority-stake-of-cybersecurity-unit-mcafee-to-tpg.html. 
  33. ↑ "McAfee Returns to Its Roots After Intel Spin-Out". April 4, 2017. http://fortune.com/2017/04/04/intel-mcafee-spinoff-security/. 
  34. ↑ "Incoming McAfee CEO Chris Young on his company's post-Intel future" (in en-US). September 9, 2016. https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/09/incoming-mcafee-ceo-chris-young-on-his-companys-post-intel-future/. 
  35. ↑ Canner, Ben (2018-12-17). "Market News: Will Intel Sell McAfee to Thoma Bravo?" (in en-US). https://solutionsreview.com/endpoint-security/market-news-will-intel-sell-mcafee-thoma-bravo/. 
  36. ↑ enterpriseitworld (2018-10-17). "McAfee reinforces Security Innovation Alliance with new Partnerships" (in en-US). https://www.enterpriseitworld.com/mcafee-reinforces-security-innovation-alliance-with-new-partnerships/. 
  37. ↑ Newswires, Dow Jones. "McAfee Readies Return to Public Markets" (in en-US). https://www.barrons.com/articles/mcafee-readies-return-to-public-markets-51562787733. 
  38. ↑ "Mcafee to tap Morgan Stanley, Bank of America for IPO". Bloomberg. Aug 27, 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-27/mcafee-is-said-to-tap-morgan-stanley-bank-of-america-for-ipo. 
  39. ↑ "Google Cloud partners with Palo Alto, McAfee, and others to bolster security" (in en-GB). 2019-12-17. https://cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2019/dec/17/google-cloud-partners-palo-alto-mcafee-bolster-security/. 
  40. ↑ "McAfee's IPO Raises $740 Million in Return to Public Market". Bloomberg. October 22, 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-22/mcafee-ipo-is-said-to-raise-740-million-in-return-to-market. 
  41. ↑ "McAfee replaces CEO ahead of possible IPO" (in en). January 17, 2020. https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/mcafee-replaces-ceo-ahead-possible-ipo. 
  42. ↑ "Investor Group Led by Advent International and Permira Completes Acquisition of McAfee" (Press release). Business Wire. March 1, 2022. Archived from the original on April 10, 2022. Retrieved March 6, 2022.
  43. ↑ Sawers, Paul (2021-03-08). "McAfee sells its enterprise cybersecurity business to private equity firm for $4B" (in en-US). https://venturebeat.com/business/mcafee-sells-its-enterprise-cybersecurity-business-to-private-equity-firm-for-4b/. 
  44. ↑ Murphy, Mike. "McAfee names Greg Johnson as new CEO" (in EN-US). https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mcafee-names-greg-johnson-as-new-ceo-11653449112. 
  45. ↑ Media, Insider (2024-07-24). "Industry veteran joins McAfee to accelerate transformation, innovation and customer growth - Insider Media" (in en). https://www.insidermedia.com/news/york%20%20%20%20re/industry-veteran-joins-mcafee-to-accelerate-transformation-innovation-and-customer-growth. 
  46. ↑ News, Industry (2022-07-25). "McAfee expands collaboration with Visa to protect people and businesses from threats" (in en-US). https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/07/25/mcafee-visa/. 
  47. ↑ Dohler, Mischa (2024-11-12). "AI in 5G Network Security: Revolutionizing Threat Detection" (in en-US). https://mischadohler.com/ai-in-5g-network-security-revolutionizing-threat-detection/. 
  48. ↑ Williams, Shannon. "McAfee launches Australia's first AI Deepfake Detector on Lenovo" (in en-US). SecurityBrief Australia. https://securitybrief.com.au/story/mcafee-launches-australia-s-first-ai-deepfake-detector-on-lenovo. 
  49. ↑ X (2024-10-23). "To keep deepfakes from infiltrating its site, Yahoo News enlists help from McAfee" (in en-US). https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2024-10-23/yahoo-news-deepfake-prevention-mcafee-technology. 
  50. ↑ Romero, Johanna (2025-05-14). "McAfee rolls out a new tool to take on scam texts, calls, and video deepfakes" (in en-US). https://www.phonearena.com/news/mcafee-rolls-out-a-new-tool-to-take-on-scams-and-deepfakes_id170337. 
  51. ↑ "McAfee Launches 'Keep it Real' Campaign, Blending Purposeful AI Creative with Survivor-Led Storytelling". 15 May 2025. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mcafee-launches-keep-real-campaign-120000139.html. 
  52. ↑ 52.0 52.1 52.2 52.3 "McAfee+" (in en-gb). 2024-10-07. https://uk.pcmag.com/security-suites/143427/mcafee. 
  53. ↑ 53.0 53.1 "McAfee Antivirus Review — Is It Good Enough in 2021?". https://www.safetydetectives.com/best-antivirus/mcafee/. 
  54. ↑ "McAfee LiveSafe Review". October 3, 2017. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/mcafee-livesafe. 
  55. ↑ Simmons, Jay H. (February 7, 2019). "McAfee Safe Connect Review". https://www.vpncrew.com/mcafee-safe-connect-review/. 
  56. ↑ read, Gadgets·2 min (May 21, 2019). "How Can You Install McAfee Mobile Security on Android?". https://venture-lab.org/2019/how-can-you-install-mcafee-mobile-security-on-android/. 
  57. ↑ Williams, Mike; November 2020, Brian Turner 12 (November 12, 2020). "Best iPhone antivirus apps in 2021: top iOS security protection". https://www.techradar.com/best/best-iphone-antivirus-app. 
  58. ↑ Thomas, King. "Does McAfee Remove Adware?". https://www.techwalla.com/articles/does-mcafee-remove-adware. 
  59. ↑ "McAfee TrueKey". 2024. https://www.truekey.com/. 
  60. ↑ "McAfee Total Protection" (in en-ae). 2024-10-03. https://me.pcmag.com/en/security-suites/20002/mcafee-total-protection. 
  61. ↑ "McAfee Launches AI-Powered Deepfake Detector". 30 August 2024. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-08-30/mcafee-launches-ai-powered-deepfake-dectector-video. 
  62. ↑ "Test McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.8 for Windows 8 (150766)". https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/business-windows-client/windows-8/february-2015/mcafee-virusscan-enterprise-8.8-150766/. 
  63. ↑ Inc, Gartner. "McAfee's Network Security Platform (IPS) Reviews, Ratings, and Features - Gartner 2021". https://www.gartner.com/market/intrusion-prevention-systems/vendor/mcafee/product/mcafee-network-security-platform-ips. 
  64. ↑ "McAfee Application / Change Control - TechLibrary - Juniper Networks". https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/jsa7.3.1/jsa-configuring-dsm/topics/task/operational/jsa-dsm-mcafee-application---change-control.html. 
  65. ↑ Garza, Victor R. (October 1, 2004). "Entercept intercepts threats". https://www.infoworld.com/article/2668523/entercept-intercepts-threats.html. 
  66. ↑ ((News)), Bridge (1998-06-10). "Company News; Network Associates to Acquire Dr. Solomon's" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/10/business/company-news-network-associates-to-acquire-dr-solomon-s.html. 
  67. ↑ Journal, Scott Thurm and Matthew RoseStaff Reporters of The Wall Street (1998-06-10). "Network Associates Agrees to Buy Dr Solomon's in $670 Million Deal" (in en-US). The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB897394722768040500. 
  68. ↑ Messmer, Ellen (April 2, 2003). "Network Associates to buy IntruVert for $100 million". Network World. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2003/0402intru.html. 
  69. ↑ "McAfee's Foundstone Acquisition Broadens Firm's Security Strategy". August 17, 2004. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB109268651641992630. 
  70. ↑ Service, Robert McMillan and Idg News (2006-06-19). "McAfee sets e-commerce boost for SiteAdvisor" (in en). https://www.networkworld.com/article/2303996/mcafee-sets-e-commerce-boost-for-siteadvisor.html. 
  71. ↑ Messmer, Ellen (June 6, 2006). "McAfee buys security software maker Preventsys". Network World. International Data Group. https://www.networkworld.com/article/2304124/mcafee-buys-security-software-maker-preventsys.html. 
  72. ↑ Keizer, Gregg (2006-10-16). "McAfee Acquires Leak Prevention Developer". https://www.crn.com/news/security/193303029/mcafee-acquires-leak-prevention-developer.htm. 
  73. ↑ "McAfee acquires SafeBoot for endpoint encryption". October 9, 2007. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid14_gci1275984,00.html. 
  74. ↑ "McAfee completes SafeBoot acquisition". November 20, 2007. https://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=5623. 
  75. ↑ Prince, Brian (October 31, 2007). "McAfee Buys into Web Site Certification with ScanAlert Acquisition". http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/McAfee-Buys-into-Web-Site-Certification-with-ScanAlert-Acquisition/. 
  76. ↑ Albanesius, Chloe (October 30, 2007). "McAfee Buys ScanAlert's 'Hacker Safe' Tech". https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2209842,00.asp. 
  77. ↑ McMillan, Robert (July 31, 2008). "McAfee to Buy Data Protection Vendor Reconnex". https://www.pcworld.com/article/149238/mcafee_to_buy_data_protection_vendor_reconnex.html. 
  78. ↑ McMillan. Scmagazineus.com, Robert (August 1, 2008). "McAfee picks up DLP maker Reconnex for $46 million". http://www.scmagazineus.com/mcafee-picks-up-dlp-maker-reconnex-for-46-million/article/113269/. 
  79. ↑ Messmer, Ellen (July 31, 2009). "McAfee buys rival firm to boost services". http://news.techworld.com/mobile-wireless/120119/mcafee-buys-rival-firm-to-boost-services/. 
  80. ↑ Whitney, Lance (May 15, 2009). "McAfee to buy whitelisting vendor Solidcore". https://www.cnet.com/news/mcafee-to-buy-whitelisting-vendor-solidcore/. 
  81. ↑ Messmer, Ellen (May 15, 2009). "McAfee to buy Solidcore for whitelisting technology". http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9133151/McAfee_to_buy_Solidcore_for_whitelisting_technologyMcA. 
  82. ↑ "McAfee Completes Acquisition of Solidcore Systems - Update" (in en-US). https://www.rttnews.com/966059/mcafee-completes-acquisition-of-solidcore-systems-update.aspx. 
  83. ↑ "McAfee adds MX Logic to its Global Threat Intelligence portfolio.". July 31, 2009. http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/2951/mcafee-adds-mx-logic-to-its-global-threat-intelligence-portfolio/. 
  84. ↑ "McAfee, Inc. Completes Acquisition of MX Logic". September 10, 2009. http://www.westcon.com.au/en/news-and-events/news/2009/9/10/mcafee-inc-completes-acquisition-of-mx-logic.aspx. 
  85. ↑ Glass, Kathryn (May 25, 2010). "McAfee to Acquire Trust Digital, Foray Into Mobile Security". http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/technology/mcafee-acquire-trust-digital-foray-mobile-security/. 
  86. ↑ "McAfee, Inc. Announces Support and Powerful Mobile Device Capabilities for Devices Running iOS 4.". July 1, 2010. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mcafee-inc-announces-support-and-powerful-mobile-device-capabilities-for-devices-running-ios-4-2010-07-01. 
  87. ↑ Messmer, Ellen (May 26, 2010). "McAfee buys smartphone security firm Trust Digital". http://news.techworld.com/security/3224757/mcafee-buys-smartphone-security-firm-trust-digital/?olo=rss. 
  88. ↑ "Newsroom | McAfee". http://www.mcafee.com/us/about/news/2010/q3/20100729-02.aspx. 
  89. ↑ "McAfee to Acquire Sentrigo to Enhance Database Security Portfolio". Business Wire. March 23, 2011. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110323005514/en/McAfee-Acquire-Sentrigo-Enhance-Database-Security-Portfolio. 
  90. ↑ Shah, Agam (2011-03-23). "Intel's McAfee unit to acquire Sentrigo" (in en). https://www.networkworld.com/article/2201285/intel-s-mcafee-unit-to-acquire-sentrigo.html. 
  91. ↑ "McAfee buys Sentrigo to enhance database security". https://www.crn.com.au/news/mcafee-buys-sentrigo-to-enhance-database-security-252249. 
  92. ↑ Fahmida Y. Rashid (October 4, 2011). "McAfee Buys SIEM Provider Nitro Security". http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/McAfee-Buys-SIEM-Provider-Nitro-Security-833837/. 
  93. ↑ Rashid, Fahmida Y. (2011-10-04). "McAfee Buys SIEM Provider Nitro Security" (in en-US). https://www.eweek.com/security/mcafee-buys-siem-provider-nitro-security/. 
  94. ↑ "McAfee Sets a New Standard for Comprehensive Malware Protection" (Press release). McAfee. February 26, 2013. Archived from the original on May 23, 2013. Retrieved April 30, 2013.
  95. ↑ "McAfee Completes Tender Offer of Stonesoft, Makes Next Generation Firewall Immediately Available" (Press release). McAfee. August 7, 2013. Archived from the original on October 5, 2024. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  96. ↑ "Acquisition of Stonesoft (McAfee Next Generation Firewall) and Sidewinder (McAfee Firewall Enterprise)" (in en). 2016-02-05. https://www.forcepoint.com/blog/insights/acquisition-stonesoft-mcafee-next-generation-firewall-and-sidewinder-mcafee-firewall. 
  97. ↑ "Next Generation Firewall and Firewall Enterprise Divestiture". https://www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en-us/support/firewall-enterprise-next-generation-firewall.html. 
  98. ↑ "Intel Acquires PasswordBox, an Award-Winning Digital Identity Manager" (Press release). Intel. December 1, 2014. Retrieved December 21, 2016.
  99. ↑ "McAfee acquires cloud security startup Skyhigh Networks, last valued at $400M". November 27, 2017. https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/27/mcafee-skyhigh-networks/. 
  100. ↑ "McAfee acquires Skyhigh Networks | McAfee". https://www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en-us/about/mcafee-skyhigh.html. 
  101. ↑ "McAfee Enterprise cloud security biz relaunches as Skyhigh". March 22, 2022. https://venturebeat.com/2022/03/21/mcafee-enterprise-cloud-security-biz-relaunches-as-skyhigh/. 
  102. ↑ Sawers, Paul (March 8, 2018). "McAfee acquires VPN provider TunnelBear". VentureBeat. https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/08/mcafee-acquires-vpn-company-tunnelbear/. 
  103. ↑ @uplevelsecurity (Jul 1, 2019). "Uplevel is now part of McAfee. Please see @mcafee for future updates". https://twitter.com/uplevelsecurity/status/1145789401252990982. 
  104. ↑ "Exclusive: McAfee Is Acquiring NanoSec to Build Out Its Container-Focused Cloud Security Services". August 24, 2019. https://fortune.com/2019/08/08/mcafee-nanosec-acquisition-cloud-security-services. 
  105. ↑ "McAfee, Inc.: Lit. Rel. No. 19520" (Press release). US Securities and Exchange Commission. January 4, 2006. Archived from the original on October 22, 2017. Retrieved September 4, 2017. While engaging in this "channel stuffing," McAfee improperly recorded the sales to distributors as revenue.
  106. ↑ 106.0 106.1 "SEC Charges McAfee, Inc. with Accounting Fraud; McAfee Agrees to Settle and Pay a $50 Million Penalty; Press Release No. 2006-3". Securities and Exchange Commission. January 4, 2006. https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2006-3.htm. 
  107. ↑ Mills, Elinor (August 21, 2009). "McAfee seeks gag on exec ousted over options". CNET News. https://www.cnet.com/news/mcafee-seeks-gag-on-exec-ousted-over-options/. 
  108. ↑ Mills, Elinor. "McAfee seeks gag on exec ousted over options" (in en). https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mcafee-seeks-gag-on-exec-ousted-over-options/. 
  109. ↑ Journal, A. B. A.. "Jurors Acquitted Ex-McAfee GC in Backdating Case Because of Intent Issues" (in en). https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/jurors_acquitted_ex_mcafee_gc_in_backdating_case_because_of_intent_issues. 
  110. ↑ Mills, Elinor. "Ex-McAfee lawyer acquitted in stock options backdating trial" (in en). https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/ex-mcafee-lawyer-acquitted-in-stock-options-backdating-trial/. 
  111. ↑ Marcho, Craig (21 April 2010). "McAfee false positive detection of w32/wecorl.a when using 5958 DAT file". https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/askperf/mcafee-false-positive-detection-of-w32wecorl-a-when-using-5958-dat-file/374578. 
  112. ↑ "McAfee DAT 5958 Update Issues". April 21, 2010. https://isc.sans.edu/diary/McAfee+DAT+5958+Update+Issues/8656. 
  113. ↑ "Botched McAfee update shutting down corporate XP machines worldwide". April 21, 2010. https://www.engadget.com/2010/04/21/mcafee-update--shutting-down-xp-machines/. 
  114. ↑ Declan McCullagh (April 21, 2010). "Buggy McAfee update whacks Windows XP PCs". https://www.cnet.com/news/buggy-mcafee-update-whacks-windows-xp-pcs/. 
  115. ↑ "McAfee bug forces Aussie store closures". April 22, 2010. https://www.zdnet.com/article/mcafee-bug-forces-aussie-store-closures/. 
  116. ↑ "McAfee apologizes for crippling PCs with bad update". April 23, 2010. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9175940/McAfee_apologizes_for_crippling_PCs_with_bad_update. 
  117. ↑ "McAfee Antivirus Update Causes Problems for Home and Enterprise Customers". PCWorld. https://www.pcworld.com/article/261165/mcafee_antivirus_update_causes_problems_for_home_and_enterprise_customers.html. 
Short description: Computer software to defend against malicious computer viruses
ClamTk, an open-source antivirus based on the ClamAV antivirus engine, was originally developed by Tomasz Kojm in 2001.

Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware.

Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name. However, with the proliferation of other malware, antivirus software started to protect against other computer threats. Some products also include protection from malicious URLs, spam, and phishing.[1]

History

1949–1980 period (pre-antivirus days)

Although the roots of the computer virus date back as early as 1949, when the Hungarian scientist John von Neumann published the "Theory of self-reproducing automata",[2] the first known computer virus appeared in 1971 and was dubbed the "Creeper virus".[3] This computer virus infected Digital Equipment Corporation's (DEC) PDP-10 mainframe computers running the TENEX operating system.[4][5]

The Creeper virus was eventually deleted by a program created by Ray Tomlinson and known as "The Reaper".[6] Some people consider "The Reaper" the first antivirus software ever written – it may be the case, but it is important to note that the Reaper was actually a virus itself specifically designed to remove the Creeper virus.[6][7]

The Creeper virus was followed by several other viruses. The first known that appeared "in the wild" was "Elk Cloner", in 1981, which infected Apple II computers.[8][9][10]

In 1983, the term "computer virus" was coined by Fred Cohen in one of the first ever published academic papers on computer viruses.[11] Cohen used the term "computer virus" to describe programs that: "affect other computer programs by modifying them in such a way as to include a (possibly evolved) copy of itself."[12] (note that a more recent definition of computer virus has been given by the Hungarian security researcher Péter Szőr: "a code that recursively replicates a possibly evolved copy of itself").[13][14]

The first IBM PC compatible "in the wild" computer virus, and one of the first real widespread infections, was "Brain" in 1986. From then, the number of viruses has grown exponentially.[15][16] Most of the computer viruses written in the early and mid-1980s were limited to self-reproduction and had no specific damage routine built into the code. That changed when more and more programmers became acquainted with computer virus programming and created viruses that manipulated or even destroyed data on infected computers.[17]

Before internet connectivity was widespread, computer viruses were typically spread by infected floppy disks. Antivirus software came into use, but was updated relatively infrequently. During this time, virus checkers essentially had to check executable files and the boot sectors of floppy disks and hard disks. However, as internet usage became common, viruses began to spread online.[18]

1980–1990 period (early days)

There are competing claims for the innovator of the first antivirus product. Possibly, the first publicly documented removal of an "in the wild" computer virus (i.e. the "Vienna virus") was performed by Bernd Fix in 1987.[19][20]

In 1987, Andreas Lüning and Kai Figge, who founded G Data Software in 1985, released their first antivirus product for the Atari ST platform.[21] In 1987, the Ultimate Virus Killer (UVK) was also released.[22] This was the de facto industry standard virus killer for the Atari ST and Atari Falcon, the last version of which (version 9.0) was released in April 2004.[citation needed] In 1987, in the United States, John McAfee founded the McAfee company (was part of Intel Security[23]) and, at the end of that year, he released the first version of VirusScan.[24] Also in 1987 (in Czechoslovakia), Peter Paško, Rudolf Hrubý, and Miroslav Trnka created the first version of NOD antivirus.[25][26]

In 1987, Fred Cohen wrote that there is no algorithm that can perfectly detect all possible computer viruses.[27]

Finally, at the end of 1987, the first two heuristic antivirus utilities were released: Flushot Plus by Ross Greenberg[28][29][30] and Anti4us by Erwin Lanting.[31] In his O'Reilly book, Malicious Mobile Code: Virus Protection for Windows, Roger Grimes described Flushot Plus as "the first holistic program to fight malicious mobile code (MMC)."[32]

However, the kind of heuristic used by early AV engines was totally different from those used today. The first product with a heuristic engine resembling modern ones was F-PROT in 1991.[33] Early heuristic engines were based on dividing the binary into different sections: data section, code section (in a legitimate binary, it usually starts always from the same location). Indeed, the initial viruses re-organized the layout of the sections, or overrode the initial portion of a section in order to jump to the very end of the file where malicious code was located—only going back to resume execution of the original code. This was a very specific pattern, not used at the time by any legitimate software, which represented an elegant heuristic to catch suspicious code. Other kinds of more advanced heuristics were later added, such as suspicious section names, incorrect header size, regular expressions, and partial pattern in-memory matching.

In 1988, the growth of antivirus companies continued. In Germany, Tjark Auerbach founded Avira (H+BEDV at the time) and released the first version of AntiVir (named "Luke Filewalker" at the time). In Bulgaria, Vesselin Bontchev released his first freeware antivirus program (he later joined FRISK Software). Also Frans Veldman released the first version of ThunderByte Antivirus, also known as TBAV (he sold his company to Norman Safeground in 1998). In Czechoslovakia, Pavel Baudiš and Eduard Kučera started avast! (at the time ALWIL Software) and released their first version of avast! antivirus. In June 1988, in South Korea , Ahn Cheol-Soo released its first antivirus software, called V1 (he founded AhnLab later in 1995). Finally, in autumn 1988, in the United Kingdom, Alan Solomon founded S&S International and created his Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit (although he launched it commercially only in 1991 – in 1998 Solomon's company was acquired by McAfee). In November 1988 a professor at the Panamerican University in Mexico City named Alejandro E. Carriles copyrighted the first antivirus software in Mexico under the name "Byte Matabichos" (Byte Bugkiller) to help solve the rampant virus infestation among students.[34]

Also in 1988, a mailing list named VIRUS-L[35] was started on the BITNET/EARN network where new viruses and the possibilities of detecting and eliminating viruses were discussed. Some members of this mailing list were: Alan Solomon, Eugene Kaspersky (Kaspersky Lab), Friðrik Skúlason (FRISK Software), John McAfee (McAfee), Luis Corrons (Panda Security), Mikko Hyppönen (F-Secure), Péter Szőr, Tjark Auerbach (Avira) and Vesselin Bontchev (FRISK Software).[35]

In 1989, in Iceland, Friðrik Skúlason created the first version of F-PROT Anti-Virus (he founded FRISK Software only in 1993). Meanwhile, in the United States, Symantec (founded by Gary Hendrix in 1982) launched its first Symantec antivirus for Macintosh (SAM).[36][37] SAM 2.0, released March 1990, incorporated technology allowing users to easily update SAM to intercept and eliminate new viruses, including many that didn't exist at the time of the program's release.[38]

In the end of the 1980s, in United Kingdom, Jan Hruska and Peter Lammer founded the security firm Sophos and began producing their first antivirus and encryption products. In the same period, in Hungary, also VirusBuster was founded (which has recently being incorporated by Sophos).

1990–2000 period (emergence of the antivirus industry)

In 1990, in Spain, Mikel Urizarbarrena founded Panda Security (Panda Software at the time).[39] In Hungary, the security researcher Péter Szőr released the first version of Pasteur antivirus. In Italy, Gianfranco Tonello created the first version of VirIT eXplorer antivirus, then founded TG Soft one year later.[40]

In 1990, the Computer Antivirus Research Organization (CARO) was founded. In 1991, CARO released the "Virus Naming Scheme", originally written by Friðrik Skúlason and Vesselin Bontchev.[41] Although this naming scheme is now outdated, it remains the only existing standard that most computer security companies and researchers ever attempted to adopt. CARO members includes: Alan Solomon, Costin Raiu, Dmitry Gryaznov, Eugene Kaspersky, Friðrik Skúlason, Igor Muttik, Mikko Hyppönen, Morton Swimmer, Nick FitzGerald, Padgett Peterson, Peter Ferrie, Righard Zwienenberg and Vesselin Bontchev.[42][43]

In 1991, in the United States, Symantec released the first version of Norton AntiVirus. In the same year, in the Czech Republic, Jan Gritzbach and Tomáš Hofer founded AVG Technologies (Grisoft at the time), although they released the first version of their Anti-Virus Guard (AVG) only in 1992. On the other hand, in Finland , F-Secure (founded in 1988 by Petri Allas and Risto Siilasmaa – with the name of Data Fellows) released the first version of their antivirus product. F-Secure claims to be the first antivirus firm to establish a presence on the World Wide Web.[44]

In 1991, the European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research (EICAR) was founded to further antivirus research and improve development of antivirus software.[45][46]

In 1992, in Russia, Igor Danilov released the first version of SpiderWeb, which later became Dr.Web.[47]

In 1994, AV-TEST reported that there were 28,613 unique malware samples (based on MD5) in their database.[48]

Over time other companies were founded. In 1996, in Romania, Bitdefender was founded and released the first version of Anti-Virus eXpert (AVX).[49] In 1997, in Russia, Eugene Kaspersky and Natalya Kaspersky co-founded security firm Kaspersky Lab.[50]

In 1996, there was also the first "in the wild" Linux virus, known as "Staog".[51]

In 1999, AV-TEST reported that there were 98,428 unique malware samples (based on MD5) in their database.[48]

2000–2005 period

In 2000, Rainer Link and Howard Fuhs started the first open source antivirus engine, called OpenAntivirus Project.[52]

In 2001, Tomasz Kojm released the first version of ClamAV, the first ever open source antivirus engine to be commercialised. In 2007, ClamAV was bought by Sourcefire,[53] which in turn was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2013.[54]

In 2002, in United Kingdom, Morten Lund and Theis Søndergaard co-founded the antivirus firm BullGuard.[55]

In 2005, AV-TEST reported that there were 333,425 unique malware samples (based on MD5) in their database.[48]

2005–2014 period

In 2007, AV-TEST reported a number of 5,490,960 new unique malware samples (based on MD5) only for that year.[48] In 2012 and 2013, antivirus firms reported a new malware samples range from 300,000 to over 500,000 per day.[56][57]

Over the years it has become necessary for antivirus software to use several different strategies (e.g. specific email and network protection or low level modules) and detection algorithms, as well as to check an increasing variety of files, rather than just executables, for several reasons:

  • Powerful macros used in word processor applications, such as Microsoft Word, presented a risk. Virus writers could use the macros to write viruses embedded within documents. This meant that computers could now also be at risk from infection by opening documents with hidden attached macros.[58]
  • The possibility of embedding executable objects inside otherwise non-executable file formats can make opening those files a risk.[59]
  • Later email programs, in particular Microsoft's Outlook Express and Outlook, were vulnerable to viruses embedded in the email body itself. A user's computer could be infected by just opening or previewing a message.[60]

In 2005, F-Secure was the first security firm that developed an Anti-Rootkit technology, called BlackLight.

Because most users are usually connected to the Internet on a continual basis, Jon Oberheide first proposed a Cloud-based antivirus design in 2008.[61]

In February 2008 McAfee Labs added the industry-first cloud-based anti-malware functionality to VirusScan under the name Artemis. It was tested by AV-Comparatives in February 2008[62] and officially unveiled in August 2008 in McAfee VirusScan.[63]

Cloud AV created problems for comparative testing of security software – part of the AV definitions was out of testers control (on constantly updated AV company servers) thus making results non-repeatable. As a result, Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organisation (AMTSO) started working on method of testing cloud products which was adopted on May 7, 2009.[64]

In 2011, AVG introduced a similar cloud service, called Protective Cloud Technology.[65]

2014–present: rise of next-gen, market consolidation

Following the 2013 release of the APT 1 report from Mandiant, the industry has seen a shift towards signature-less approaches to the problem capable of detecting and mitigating zero-day attacks.[66] Numerous approaches to address these new forms of threats have appeared, including behavioral detection, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud-based file detonation. According to Gartner, it is expected the rise of new entrants, such Carbon Black, Cylance and Crowdstrike will force EPP incumbents into a new phase of innovation and acquisition.[67] One method from Bromium involves micro-virtualization to protect desktops from malicious code execution initiated by the end user. Another approach from SentinelOne and Carbon Black focuses on behavioral detection by building a full context around every process execution path in real time,[68][69] while Cylance leverages an artificial intelligence model based on machine learning.[70] Increasingly, these signature-less approaches have been defined by the media and analyst firms as "next-generation" antivirus[71] and are seeing rapid market adoption as certified antivirus replacement technologies by firms such as Coalfire and DirectDefense.[72] In response, traditional antivirus vendors such as Trend Micro,[73] Symantec and Sophos[74] have responded by incorporating "next-gen" offerings into their portfolios as analyst firms such as Forrester and Gartner have called traditional signature-based antivirus "ineffective" and "outdated".[75]

As of Windows 8, Windows includes its own free antivirus protection under the Windows Defender brand. Despite bad detection scores in its early days, AV-Test now certifies Defender as one of its top products.[76][77] While it isn't publicly known how the inclusion of antivirus software in Windows affected antivirus sales, Google search traffic for antivirus has declined significantly since 2010.[78]

Since 2016, there has been a notable amount of consolidation in the industry. Avast purchased AVG in 2016 for $1.3 billion.[79] Avira was acquired by Norton owner Gen Digital (then NortonLifeLock) in 2020 for $360 million.[80] In 2021, the Avira division of Gen Digital acquired BullGuard.[81] The BullGuard brand was discontinued in 2022 and its customers were migrated to Norton. In 2022, Gen Digital acquired Avast, effectively consolidating four major antivirus brands under one owner.[82]

Identification methods

In 1987, Frederick B. Cohen demonstrated that the algorithm, which would be able to detect all possible viruses, can't possibly exist (like the algorithm which determines whether or not the given program halts).[27] However, using different layers of defense, a good detection rate may be achieved.

There are several methods which antivirus engines can use to identify malware:

  • Sandbox detection: a particular behavioural-based detection technique that, instead of detecting the behavioural fingerprint at run time, it executes the programs in a virtual environment, logging what actions the program performs. Depending on the actions logged which can include memory usage and network accesses,[83] the antivirus engine can determine if the program is malicious or not.[84] If not, then, the program is executed in the real environment. Albeit this technique has shown to be quite effective, given its heaviness and slowness, it is rarely used in end-user antivirus solutions.[85]
  • Data mining techniques: one of the latest approaches applied in malware detection. Data mining and machine learning algorithms are used to try to classify the behaviour of a file (as either malicious or benign) given a series of file features, that are extracted from the file itself.[86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][excessive citations]

Signature-based detection

Traditional antivirus software relies heavily upon signatures to identify malware.[100]

Substantially, when a malware sample arrives in the hands of an antivirus firm, it is analysed by malware researchers or by dynamic analysis systems. Then, once it is determined to be a malware, a proper signature of the file is extracted and added to the signatures database of the antivirus software.[101]

Although the signature-based approach can effectively contain malware outbreaks, malware authors have tried to stay a step ahead of such software by writing "oligomorphic", "polymorphic" and, more recently, "metamorphic" viruses, which encrypt parts of themselves or otherwise modify themselves as a method of disguise, so as to not match virus signatures in the dictionary.[102]

Heuristics

Many viruses start as a single infection and through either mutation or refinements by other attackers, can grow into dozens of slightly different strains, called variants. Generic detection refers to the detection and removal of multiple threats using a single virus definition.[103]

For example, the Vundo trojan has several family members, depending on the antivirus vendor's classification. Symantec classifies members of the Vundo family into two distinct categories, Trojan.Vundo and Trojan.Vundo.B.[104][105]

While it may be advantageous to identify a specific virus, it can be quicker to detect a virus family through a generic signature or through an inexact match to an existing signature. Virus researchers find common areas that all viruses in a family share uniquely and can thus create a single generic signature. These signatures often contain non-contiguous code, using wildcard characters where differences lie. These wildcards allow the scanner to detect viruses even if they are padded with extra, meaningless code.[106] A detection that uses this method is said to be "heuristic detection".

Rootkit detection

Main article: Rootkit

Anti-virus software can attempt to scan for rootkits. A rootkit is a type of malware designed to gain administrative-level control over a computer system without being detected. Rootkits can change how the operating system functions and in some cases can tamper with the anti-virus program and render it ineffective. Rootkits are also difficult to remove, in some cases requiring a complete re-installation of the operating system.[107]

Real-time protection

Real-time protection, on-access scanning, background guard, resident shield, autoprotect, and other synonyms refer to the automatic protection provided by most antivirus, anti-spyware, and other anti-malware programs. This monitors computer systems for suspicious activity such as computer viruses, spyware, adware, and other malicious objects. Real-time protection detects threats in opened files and scans apps in real-time as they are installed on the device.[108] When inserting a CD, opening an email, or browsing the web, or when a file already on the computer is opened or executed.[109]

Issues of concern

Unexpected renewal costs

Some commercial antivirus software end-user license agreements include a clause that the subscription will be automatically renewed, and the purchaser's credit card automatically billed, at the renewal time without explicit approval. For example, McAfee requires users to unsubscribe at least 60 days before the expiration of the present subscription[110] while Bitdefender sends notifications to unsubscribe 30 days before the renewal.[111] Norton AntiVirus also renews subscriptions automatically by default.[112]

Rogue security applications

Main article: Rogue security software

Some apparent antivirus programs are actually malware masquerading as legitimate software, such as WinFixer, MS Antivirus, and Mac Defender.[113]

Problems caused by false positives

A "false positive" or "false alarm" is when antivirus software identifies a non-malicious file as malware. When this happens, it can cause serious problems. For example, if an antivirus program is configured to immediately delete or quarantine infected files, as is common on Microsoft Windows antivirus applications, a false positive in an essential file can render the Windows operating system or some applications unusable.[114] Recovering from such damage to critical software infrastructure incurs technical support costs and businesses can be forced to close whilst remedial action is undertaken.[115][116]

Examples of serious false-positives:

  • May 2007: a faulty virus signature issued by Symantec mistakenly removed essential operating system files, leaving thousands of PCs unable to boot.[117]
  • May 2007: the executable file required by Pegasus Mail on Windows was falsely detected by Norton AntiVirus as being a Trojan and it was automatically removed, preventing Pegasus Mail from running. Norton AntiVirus had falsely identified three releases of Pegasus Mail as malware, and would delete the Pegasus Mail installer file when that happened.[118] In response to this Pegasus Mail stated:
  • April 2010: McAfee VirusScan detected svchost.exe, a normal Windows binary, as a virus on machines running Windows XP with Service Pack 3, causing a reboot loop and loss of all network access.[119][120]
  • December 2010: a faulty update on the AVG anti-virus suite damaged 64-bit versions of Windows 7, rendering it unable to boot, due to an endless boot loop created.[121]
  • October 2011: Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) removed the Google Chrome web browser, rival to Microsoft's own Internet Explorer. MSE flagged Chrome as a Zbot banking trojan.[122]
  • September 2012: Sophos' anti-virus suite identified various update-mechanisms, including its own, as malware. If it was configured to automatically delete detected files, Sophos Antivirus could render itself unable to update, required manual intervention to fix the problem.[123][124]
  • September 2017: the Google Play Protect anti-virus started identifying Motorola's Moto G4 Bluetooth application as malware, causing Bluetooth functionality to become disabled.[125]
  • September 2022: Microsoft Defender flagged all Chromium based web browsers and Electron based apps like WhatsApp, Discord, Spotify as a severe threat.[126]

Running (the real-time protection of) multiple antivirus programs concurrently can degrade performance and create conflicts.[127] However, using a concept called multiscanning, several companies (including G Data Software[128] and Microsoft[129]) have created applications which can run multiple engines concurrently.

It is sometimes necessary to temporarily disable virus protection when installing major updates such as Windows Service Packs or updating graphics card drivers.[130] Active antivirus protection may partially or completely prevent the installation of a major update. Anti-virus software can cause problems during the installation of an operating system upgrade, e.g. when upgrading to a newer version of Windows "in place"—without erasing the previous version of Windows. Microsoft recommends that anti-virus software be disabled to avoid conflicts with the upgrade installation process.[131][132][133] Active anti-virus software can also interfere with a firmware update process.[134]

The functionality of a few computer programs can be hampered by active anti-virus software. For example, TrueCrypt, a disk encryption program, states on its troubleshooting page that anti-virus programs can conflict with TrueCrypt and cause it to malfunction or operate very slowly.[135] Anti-virus software can impair the performance and stability of games running in the Steam platform.[136]

Support issues also exist around antivirus application interoperability with common solutions like SSL VPN remote access and network access control products.[137] These technology solutions often have policy assessment applications that require an up-to-date antivirus to be installed and running. If the antivirus application is not recognized by the policy assessment, whether because the antivirus application has been updated or because it is not part of the policy assessment library, the user will be unable to connect.

Effectiveness

Studies in December 2007 showed that the effectiveness of antivirus software had decreased in the previous year, particularly against unknown or zero day attacks. The computer magazine c't found that detection rates for these threats had dropped from 40 to 50% in 2006 to 20–30% in 2007. At that time, the only exception was the NOD32 antivirus, which managed a detection rate of 68%.[138] According to the ZeuS tracker website the average detection rate for all variants of the well-known ZeuS trojan is as low as 40%.[139]

The problem is magnified by the changing intent of virus authors. Some years ago it was obvious when a virus infection was present. At the time, viruses were written by amateurs and exhibited destructive behavior or pop-ups. Modern viruses are often written by professionals, financed by criminal organizations.[140]

In 2008, Eva Chen, CEO of Trend Micro, stated that the anti-virus industry has over-hyped how effective its products are—and so has been misleading customers—for years.[141]

Independent testing on all the major virus scanners consistently shows that none provides 100% virus detection. The best ones provided as high as 99.9% detection for simulated real-world situations, while the lowest provided 91.1% in tests conducted in August 2013. Many virus scanners produce false positive results as well, identifying benign files as malware.[142]

Although methods may differ, some notable independent quality testing agencies include AV-Comparatives, ICSA Labs, SE Labs, West Coast Labs, Virus Bulletin, AV-TEST and other members of the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization.[143][144]

New viruses

Anti-virus programs are not always effective against new viruses, even those that use non-signature-based methods that should detect new viruses. The reason for this is that the virus designers test their new viruses on the major anti-virus applications to make sure that they are not detected before releasing them into the wild.[145]

Some new viruses, particularly ransomware, use polymorphic code to avoid detection by virus scanners. Jerome Segura, a security analyst with ParetoLogic, explained:[146]

A proof of concept virus has used the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to avoid detection from anti-virus software. The potential success of this involves bypassing the CPU in order to make it much harder for security researchers to analyse the inner workings of such malware.[147]

Rootkits

Detecting rootkits is a major challenge for anti-virus programs. Rootkits have full administrative access to the computer and are invisible to users and hidden from the list of running processes in the task manager. Rootkits can modify the inner workings of the operating system and tamper with antivirus programs.[148]

Damaged files

If a file has been infected by a computer virus, anti-virus software will attempt to remove the virus code from the file during disinfection, but it is not always able to restore the file to its undamaged state.[149][150] In such circumstances, damaged files can only be restored from existing backups or shadow copies (this is also true for ransomware[151]); installed software that is damaged requires re-installation[152] (however, see System File Checker).

Firmware infections

Any writeable firmware in the computer can be infected by malicious code.[153] This is a major concern, as an infected BIOS could require the actual BIOS chip to be replaced to ensure the malicious code is completely removed.[154] Anti-virus software is not effective at protecting firmware and the motherboard BIOS from infection.[155] In 2014, security researchers discovered that USB devices contain writeable firmware which can be modified with malicious code (dubbed "BadUSB"), which anti-virus software cannot detect or prevent. The malicious code can run undetected on the computer and could even infect the operating system prior to it booting up.[156][157]

Performance and other drawbacks

Antivirus software has some drawbacks, first of which that it can impact a computer's performance.[158]

Furthermore, inexperienced users can be lulled into a false sense of security when using the computer, considering their computers to be invulnerable, and may have problems understanding the prompts and decisions that antivirus software presents them with. An incorrect decision may lead to a security breach. If the antivirus software employs heuristic detection, it must be fine-tuned to minimize misidentifying harmless software as malicious (false positive).[159]

Antivirus software itself usually runs at the highly trusted kernel level of the operating system to allow it access to all the potential malicious process and files, creating a potential avenue of attack.[160] The US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intelligence agencies, respectively, have been exploiting anti-virus software to spy on users.[161] Anti-virus software has highly privileged and trusted access to the underlying operating system, which makes it a much more appealing target for remote attacks.[162] Additionally anti-virus software is "years behind security-conscious client-side applications like browsers or document readers. It means that Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Word or Google Chrome are harder to exploit than 90 percent of the anti-virus products out there", according to Joxean Koret, a researcher with Coseinc, a Singapore-based information security consultancy.[162]

Alternative solutions

The command-line virus scanner of Clam AV 0.95.2 running a virus signature definition update, scanning a file, and identifying a Trojan.

Antivirus software running on individual computers is the most common method employed of guarding against malware, but it is not the only solution. Other solutions can also be employed by users, including Unified Threat Management (UTM), hardware and network firewalls, Cloud-based antivirus and online scanners.

Hardware and network firewall

Network firewalls prevent unknown programs and processes from accessing the system. However, they are not antivirus systems and make no attempt to identify or remove anything. They may protect against infection from outside the protected computer or network, and limit the activity of any malicious software which is present by blocking incoming or outgoing requests on certain TCP/IP ports. A firewall is designed to deal with broader system threats that come from network connections into the system and is not an alternative to a virus protection system.

Cloud antivirus

Cloud antivirus is a technology that uses lightweight agent software on the protected computer, while offloading the majority of data analysis to the provider's infrastructure.[163]

One approach to implementing cloud antivirus involves scanning suspicious files using multiple antivirus engines. This approach was proposed by an early implementation of the cloud antivirus concept called CloudAV. CloudAV was designed to send programs or documents to a network cloud where multiple antivirus and behavioral detection programs are used simultaneously in order to improve detection rates. Parallel scanning of files using potentially incompatible antivirus scanners is achieved by spawning a virtual machine per detection engine and therefore eliminating any possible issues. CloudAV can also perform "retrospective detection", whereby the cloud detection engine rescans all files in its file access history when a new threat is identified thus improving new threat detection speed. Finally, CloudAV is a solution for effective virus scanning on devices that lack the computing power to perform the scans themselves.[164]

Some examples of cloud anti-virus products are Panda Cloud Antivirus and Immunet. Comodo Group has also produced cloud-based anti-virus.[165][166]

Online scanning

Some antivirus vendors maintain websites with free online scanning capability of the entire computer, critical areas only, local disks, folders or files. Periodic online scanning is a good idea for those that run antivirus applications on their computers because those applications are frequently slow to catch threats. One of the first things that malicious software does in an attack is disable any existing antivirus software and sometimes the only way to know of an attack is by turning to an online resource that is not installed on the infected computer.[167]

Specialized tools

The command-line rkhunter scanner is an engine to scan for Linux rootkits running on Ubuntu.

Virus removal tools are available to help remove stubborn infections or a certain type of infection. Examples include Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool,[168] Sophos Scan & Clean,[169] and Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool.[170] It is also worth noting that sometimes antivirus software can produce a false-positive result, indicating an infection where there is none.[171]

A rescue disk that is bootable, such as a CD or USB storage device, can be used to run antivirus software outside of the installed operating system in order to remove infections while they are dormant. A bootable rescue disk can be useful when, for example, the installed operating system is no longer bootable or has malware that is resisting all attempts to be removed by the installed antivirus software. Examples of software that can be used on a bootable rescue disk include the Trend Micro Rescue Disk,[172] Kaspersky Rescue Disk,[173] and Comodo Rescue Disk.[174] Most of the rescue disk software can also be installed onto a USB storage device that is bootable on newer computers.

Usage and risks

According to an FBI survey, major businesses lose $12 million annually dealing with virus incidents.[175] A survey by Symantec in 2009 found that a third of small to medium-sized business did not use antivirus protection at that time, whereas more than 80% of home users had some kind of antivirus installed.[176] According to a sociological survey conducted by G Data Software in 2010 49% of women did not use any antivirus program at all.[177]

See also

Citations

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  125. ↑ If Google Play Protect is breaking bluetooth on your Moto G4 Plus, don't worry because there's a fix, Android Police, 2017-09-11, http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/09/11/google-play-protect-breaking-bluetooth-moto-g4-plus-dont-worry-theres-fix/, retrieved November 1, 2017 
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  136. ↑ "Spyware, Adware, and Viruses Interfering with Steam". https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6057-YLBN-1660.  Steam support page.
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  156. ↑ "Turning USB peripherals into BadUSB". https://srlabs.de/badusb/. 
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General bibliography

  • Szor, Peter (2005). The Art of Computer Virus Research and Defense. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 978-0-321-30454-4. 


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