History Of McAfee

McAfee Corporation, which was originally 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 a firm based in San Jose, California, that is primarily concerned with providing people all over the globe with internet safety.

In February of 2011, Intel made the acquisition of the firm, and it was subsequently included into the Intel Security division.

During the year 2017, Intel entered into a strategic partnership with TPG Capital, which resulted in the transformation of Intel Security into a joint venture between the two firms known as McAfee.In the newly formed corporation,

Thoma Bravo acquired a minority investment, while Intel maintained a 49% ownership in the business.It was in the year 2020 that the owners of McAfee brought the company public on the NASDAQ. In the year 2022, an investment group headed by Advent International Corporation put the company back into private ownership.

The firm was first established in 1987 under the name McAfee Associates, which was named after its founder, John McAfee, who left the company in April of 1994.

McAfee was established as a corporation in the year 1992 in the state of Delaware. In 1993, McAfee resigned from his position as CEO of the firm and immediately assumed the role of chief technology officer.

He remained in that role until his final departure. In his stead, Bill Larson was placed in the position of CEO. In 1997, McAfee Associates, Network General, PGP Corporation, and Helix Software came together to establish Network Associates. This led to the formation of Network Associates.

FSA Corporation, which was situated in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, was bought by McAfee in 1996. This acquisition assisted the firm in diversifying its security solutions beyond client-based antivirus software by bringing on board its own network and desktop encryption technology.

During that time period, the FSA team was responsible for overseeing the development of a number of additional technologies that were considered to be cutting edge. These technologies included product lines for public key infrastructure, file encryption, and firewalls.

Despite the fact that each of those product lines achieved its own unique level of success, such as PowerBroker (which was built by Dean Huxley and Dan Freedman and is now offered by BeyondTrust), the expansion of antivirus software has consistently outperformed the expansion of the other available security product lines.

There is no denying that McAfee's anti-virus and anti-spam solutions continue to be the company's most well-known offerings.

McAfee has acquired and sold a number of other businesses, one of which being Trusted Information Systems.

This company was responsible for the development of the Firewall Toolkit, which served as the free software base for the commercial Gauntlet Firewall. Subsequently, Secure Computing Corporation purchased the company. Trusted Information Systems was purchased by McAfee in 1998, while it was operating under the Network Associates brand name.

McAfee was a highly influential company in the world of open-source software as a result of its brief ownership of TIS Labs/NAI Labs/Network Associates Laboratories/McAfee Research.

This organization was responsible for the production of portions of the Linux, FreeBSD, and Darwin operating systems, as well as the development of portions of the BIND name server software and SNMP version 3.

When it came to teaching and defending people against the Love Bug or ILOVEYOU virus, which is considered to be one of the most damaging computer viruses in the history of the world, McAfee/Network Associates was the top expert in the year 2000.

At the end of the year 2000, the company's Chief Executive Officer, Bill Larson, President Peter Watkins, and Chief Financial Officer, Prabhat Goyal, all departed from their positions.Gene Hodges, the president of the company, served as the temporary CEO prior to George Samenuk being named CEO in the year 2001.

It was in July of 2004 that the corporation reverted back to its old name.It began the process of reorganization by selling its Magic Solutions company to Remedy, a division of BMC Software, at the beginning of the year.

In the middle of 2004, the company changed its name to McAfee in order to reflect its concentration on security-related technology. At the same time, it sold the Sniffer technology business to a venture capital firm called Network General, which was the same name as the corporation that had originally owned Sniffer Technologies.

In 2006, Dale Fuller was appointed as temporary CEO after the resignation of Samenuk and the dismissal of President Kevin Weiss.

This occurred as a result of allegations that the corporation engaged in improper stock options procedures.

It was on April 2, 2007, when David DeWalt assumed the role of CEO.In 2007, McAfee initiated a program known as the Security Innovation Alliance (SIA), which was designed to foster collaborations with other technology businesses and integrate the technology of third-party companies with McAfee's security and compliance risk management technologies.

An deal to license software was made public by McAfee on March 11, 2008, with the United States Department of Defense. With the help of this arrangement, the Department of Defense was able to include McAfee's Virus Scan Enterprise and Anti-Spyware Enterprise into the cyber-security solutions offered by the Defense Information Systems Agency.

An anti-virus update known as DAT 5958 was sent by McAfee on April 21, 2010, and it was responsible for crippling millions of Windows-based systems used by businesses and individuals.

In a transaction that was valued at $7.68 billion, Intel made the announcement on August 19, 2010, that it would acquire McAfee for a price of $48 per share.The strategic alliance between Intel and TPG was announced in September of 2016, with the intention of transforming McAfee into an independent cyber-security firm via the formation of a joint venture. The transaction was finalized on April 3, 2017.

Following the resignation of CEO David DeWalt in 2011, McAfee promoted Michael DeCesare and Todd Gebhart to the position of co-president.An further partnership between McAfee and SAIC was formed in 2011 with the purpose of developing anti-cyber espionage technologies that would be used by government and intelligence organizations, in addition to telecommunications corporations.

Chief Executive Officer Brian Krzanich of Intel made the announcement that the company will be changing its name from McAfee Security to Intel Security on January 6, 2014, at the Consumer Electronics Show.

The red shield mark held by the corporation would be preserved, and the company would continue to function as an Intel subsidiary that is completely owned by Intel.

Despite the fact that John McAfee was no longer involved in the firm, he expressed his happiness at the fact that his name was no longer connected to the program. Despite this, the McAfee brand was still present on the goods as of the year 2016.

Intel entered into a deal with TPG on September 7, 2016, to transform Intel Security into a jointly-owned, independent cyber-security firm under the McAfee brand. Intel also sold the bulk of its investment in the company to TPG.The firm was released from Intel on April 4, 2017, after the conclusion of the transaction that had been negotiated between the two corporations.

As the firm transitioned into an autonomous corporation, Chris Young rose to the role of chief executive officer.It was fruitless for the firm to get into negotiations with minority investor Thoma Bravo in 2018, with the intention of selling majority ownership of McAfee.

During the year 2018, McAfee also expanded the scope of its relationships within the Security Innovation Alliance to include businesses such as Atos, CyberX, Fidelis Cyber-security, Aujas, and Silver Peak.

McAfee started holding meetings with bankers in July 2019 to examine the possibility of becoming an initial public offering (IPO).The initial public offering (IPO) of the firm was anticipated to have a value of at least $8 billion. On the other hand, neither a commitment nor a decision to enter the public market was verified.

In the latter half of 2019, McAfee entered into a partnership with Google Cloud in order to connect the endpoint security technology and Mvision Cloud that McAfee offers with the cloud architecture that Google provides.

The first public offering that McAfee and its stockholders conducted in October 2020 brought in a total of $740 million and was valued at around $8.6 billion based on the number of outstanding shares that were included in the company's prospectus.

The return of McAfee to the public market, which had been absent for nine years, was signified by the company's shares being listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker code MCFE.

Peter Leav took over as CEO of McAfee when Chris Young, who had previously held the post, resigned in the year 2020.

Nevertheless, the stock was removed from the NASDAQ stock exchange, and the firm was taken private once again in March of 2022 by a multi-national investor group operating under Advent International Corporation. This group included the Canada Pension Plan, the Singaporean GIC Private Limited, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.