McAfee is a global computer security software company headquartered at Santa Clara in California.

In February 2011, McAfee was bought by Intel and thereafter became a part of the Intel security group. A strategic deal was announced by Intel on the 7th of September 2016 with TPG capital that was related to the conversion of Intel security into a joint venture of the 2 companies and be named McAfee. This deal was wrapped up on 3rd April 2017.

A minority stake was taken up by Thoma Bravo in the new company while Intel maintained a stake of 49%.

McAfee the company was founded by John McAfee in 1987 after whom the company was named as McAfee Associates. The Founder John McAfee resigned from the company in 1994. In the year 1992 in the state of Delaware, McAfee was incorporated. Network General, Helix Software, PGP Corporation, and McAfee Associates were merged together in 1997 to form Network Associates.

McAfee Inc has not only maintained but also created the antivirus software program called McAfee VirusScan. This program is included in McAfee antivirus plus, McAfee Total Protection as well as McAfee LiveSafe. The brand version called the Sky Broadband was produced previously by McAfee and BSkyB. Sky digital customers were offered this product for free on the installation of the modem. McAfee LiveSafe is a combination of McAfee Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, Anti Ransomware Interceptor, and firewall.

Another product produced by McAfee is the VirusScan Enterprise. This product, manufactured by McAfee Inc is used on large networks in order to make it easy to manage the antivirus software installed on multiple systems on the network. This product of McAfee has client application for the consumers on the network and the server application which installs, configures settings and updates for the client programs. McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator or ePO is the central software repository which controls the various McAfee products and also the VirusScan.

The VirusScan for Mac 8.6 was announced by McAfee in November 2008. This version included Leopard Compatibility that is a universal binary package that can operate on PowerPC-based macOS and Intel.

The viruses are blocked from entering the system by the McAfee antivirus software. This software can also kill those viruses that may have possibly broken through the firewall of the system.

As an initial step to begin with the production of the computer system, McAfee antivirus uses an automatic web crawler to update the virus database which will help in identifying the virus by its name, type, and capability. This database will also help the software program to find a way of deleting the malicious virus. On the completion of the scanning by the software, the antivirus is ready to stop the entry or destroy any malware that could have probably entered the system.

After the database and the information of the virus has been updated, the antivirus software program begins to strengthen the firewall of the system.

McAfee antivirus software program is well equipped to keep all the threats, especially the newer and complicated ones, away from the system. The antivirus software carries out a thorough search to identify and manage the Internet’s latest threats. This is one reason why the firewall of McAfee antivirus is unbreakable. The firewall does not allow anything to enter into the system until and unless the user permits the entry. If at all the firewall feels that there is a prospective threat, then a warning is released. The coverage of certain versions of McAfee Antivirus firewall expands to the Internet as well so as to warn the users of the prospective malicious websites while surfing the Internet. If a user accidentally authorizes the access of a worm or a malware into the system by downloading a malicious program or opening up an attachment that was corrupted, then the McAfee Antivirus uses the scanner engine to scan and identify the invader and also destroy it before the system is affected.