McAfee: Hero to zero

• Posted on 24 May 2024
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John McAfee is a British American entrepreneur who, amongst many other things, was mostly known for creating McAfee antivirus software. McAfee lived a very controversial life, leading to his company trying to distance itself from him after he left. In this article, you can read about McAfee’s personal life, McAfee as a brand and all developments and changes over the years, and the products McAfee offers.

About John McAfee

John McAfee is the founder of McAfee Associates Inc. However, McAfee’s personal life is an interesting one as well. From being arrested for multiple crimes to running for president, McAfee lived a very interesting and turbulent life. McAfee stepped down from being head of McAfee Associates Inc. in 1993. in 1994 he completely resigned from the company.

McAfee has had his share of controversial cases. For starters, when he moved to Belize, he started a company called QuorumEx. A couple of years later his company was raided by the ‘Gang Suppression Unit’ of Belize’s police force because they suspected there was a methamphetamine lab somewhere. During this arrest, the police shot his dog, confiscated his personal belongings, and arrested him, but the charges against McAfee were dropped later. When the police entered his home, McAfee was in bed with a 16-year-old girl.

Another very controversial moment occurred in 2012 when McAfee was a suspect in the murder of his neighbour. Rumours were spread that McAfee’s neighbour had poisoned his dog because of the noise they were making and a few days later he was found dead with a shot wound in the back of his head. After this, McAfee claimed he would be silenced by the authorities so he ran. Eventually, he was arrested and afterward faked two heart attacks hoping he wouldn’t be extradited to the United States, which worked.

Back in the United States, in 2015 McAfee announced he would be running for president. He was going to be running for at that time newly formed Cyber Party but changed to the Libertarian Party the same year. He ran for president again at the next election but was forced to do this in exile since he was under investigation by the IRS for tax felonies.

McAfee was arrested in October 2020 in Spain upon request from the United States. Apart from tax felonies, he was also accused of concealing assets in other people’s names. His extradition was postponed because of McAfee’s claims he faced political persecution. However, on June 23rd, 2021, the extradition was ruled to happen. McAfee was found dead in his cell the same day assumingly of a suicide attempt.

McAfee: The brand

After creating his antivirus software, John McAfee created McAfee Associates Inc. so he could bring his software called VirusScan to the market. The company was renamed to Network Associates Inc. From 1997 to 2004 and back to McAfee Associates Inc. from 2004 to 2014. From 2014 to 2017 it was called Intel Security Group and is now called McAfee Corp.

One of the biggest influences McAfee has had as a brand is counteracting one of the biggest and most destructive computer viruses ever called the ILOVEYOU virus. The company took a leading role in protecting people against the virus but also educate people so they know what to do themselves.

In 2007, McAfee launched the Security Innovation Alliance (SIA). The focus of this program was creating partnerships between McAfee and other tech companies. Additionally the SIA focused on combining McAfee’s compliance risk management technology and security with the technology of third-party companies. An example is the collaboration with the US Department of Defense where McAfee’s Anti-Spyware Enterprise and Virus Scan Enterprise integrated into the Defense Information Systems Agency’s cyber-security solutions.

McAfee: Products

McAfee offers a variety of protection subscriptions. There are 6 different subscription models which go from basic to more advanced subscription models.

The most simple subscription is the McAfee basic version. This version is valid for one device and costs around €30 each year. Its compatible with multiple platforms and includes firewall, antivirus, web security, and password management.

The next in line is McAfee Essential. This subscriptions costs around €40 each year and can be used for 5 devices. McAfee Essential is still a pretty basic version. It includes identity verification, password management, a VPN, and antivirus.

The first more elaborate subscription is McAfee Premium. It costs around €45 each year and can be used for an unlimited number of devices. Apart from the identity verification, password management, VPN, and antivirus this subscription is also equipped with the ability to make a scan and that way find out what organisations have access to your data and if needed, these organisations can be removed to prevent a data leak.

McAfee Advanced is the first subscription in line that includes help from experts who can fix your credit and identity in case of an identity theft. Moreover, McAfee Advanced includes support in cancelling and replacing credit cards, identity documents or payments in case these get stolen. This subscription costs around €65 euros each month and like the previous subscription can be used for an unlimited number of devices. McAfee Advanced includes the same feature as the earlier mentioned subscriptions.

The most advanced and therefore most expensive subscription is McAfee Ultimate. This subscription costs around €105 each year and can also be used on an unlimited number of devices. McAfee Ultimate and McAfee Advanced are pretty similar. However, the only difference is that in terms of account clean-up. McAfee Advances is limited to scanning online accounts to see the risk level for each organization. McAfee Ultimate on the other hand, includes a full service. This means that McAfee offers to do your scanning for you each month, manage the risk levels on your accounts so you can decide to keep or remove certain accounts. So McAfee ultimate owners receive help from McAfee to do the scanning for you and McAfee Advanced owners are required to do the scanning themselves.

Digi License: McAfee products

At Digi License you can purchase certain McAfee products. There are 4 different possibilities:

1. McAfee Internet Security: costs €9,95 for a year. Offers a strong basic security and can be used for 3 different devices.
2. McAfee Internet Security can also be purchased for the use of 10 devices. In this case the costs would be €13,95 for a year.
3. McAfee Total Protection: costs €10,95 for a year. Includes a strong protection software. Can be used on 1 device and furthermore includes antivirus, firewall, and anti-malware.  
4. McAfee LiveSafe: costs €22,95 for a year. McAfee LiveSafe is a complete package that ensures the protection against viruses, malware, phishing, ransomware, and identity theft.

McAfee: Corporate changes

Over the years, McAfee Associates has been renamed, merged and sold.

The first corporate changes for McAfee came in 1997. This was the year that McAfee Associates merged with Network General and together became Network Associates. After the merger, Network Associates became the largest independent network security and management software company in the world. Their goal was to create an organization specialized in cybersecurity focusing on endpoint and network security.

In 2003, the new president Gene Hodges shifted Network Associates’ focus toward security, LAN management, and shedding desktop management. Apart from these, other divisions were sold, Gauntlet firewall went to Secure Computing, and what was left, including an antivirus product, became McAfee.

In 2006, new plans came to life to combine old and new products into an overall risk management framework. SiteAdviser and PreventSys were released in combination with EPolicy Orchestrator (ePO) which realised the combination of new and old. This realization was a way to expand beyond the consumer market into the enterprise sector.

In 2007, Dave DeWalt was appointed CEO and afterwards ensured the acquisition of Secure Computing and was able to bring the Gauntlet Firewall back.

In 2010, McAfee was sold to Intel for $7.68 billion. This was a way of applying Intel’s new strategy of empowering security into silicon and establishing its claim into the wireless marketing. From 2010 to 2016 McAfee operated under Intel. These years were highly beneficial in terms of transformation for the security branch. However, for the company itself it wasn’t. There were a lot of employees who left to work for themselves or other companies. These newly created companies or other companies would later on become competitors of Intel. In total, Intel lost a total of $3.48 billion on the acquisition of McAfee.

After this, McAfee became an independent company again. Chris Young became CEO and made a lot of changes. Non-core products were eliminated, the marketing strategy was updated, and new enterprise tools were initiated. In a short period of time, the company shifted its focus completely towards cloud post-intel. In 2017, cloud access security broker (CASB) provider Skyhigh Networks was acquired. SkyHigh Networks played a big part in McAfee’s transition to the cloud.

Two years later, in October 2019, McAfee debuted its MVISION portfolio. The portfolio includes stability improvements and unites the security management layer. MVISION is equipped with MVISION Cloud which benefits the infrastructure-, software protection- and platform-as-a-service environments. Additionally, MVISION Endpoint, which ensures advanced protection for Windows Server 2016 and later and Windows 10, and MVISION EDR (Endpoint Detection and response) which detects considerate threats, are included as well. All these features combined ensure protection of organizations’ networks, data, cloud, and block threats.