McAfee Brand Name To Be Phased Out And Replaced By "Intel Security"

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) will phase out the McAfee brand name and replace it with “Intel Security,” the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced at the event that the Intel Security brand will be used to identify all Intel security products and services. He also said that the rebranding will take place immediately, but the transition of McAfee products to the Intel Security brand may take a year to complete.

According to Intel, its security products will not get a completely new logo and the company will retain the familiar red shield, which according to Intel, represents “the core values of security and protection.”

The company also said that the transition would happen “as new products are introduced,” which suggests that Intel could brand the next version of every McAfee product as Intel Security, The Next Web Reported.

Intel announced in August 2010 that it had agreed to buy McAfee for $7.7 billion in cash. The company paid $48 a share for McAfee, which accounted for a 60 percent premium for the antivirus software maker. The company had said at the time that McAfee would continue to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel, with its employees working alonside Intel personnel.

According to a report from The Verge, McAfee's rebranding is seen as Intel’s attempt to distance itself from John McAfee, the controversial founder of the antivirus software company.

McAfee, who founded the company more than 20 years ago and left it in 1994, was reportedly a druggie and part-time fugitive before he was detained in Guatemala in 2012. McAfee was reportedly identified by local authorities as a person of interest in the murder of a neighbor in Belize, and he subsequently left the country to avoid being questioned and claimed he was being framed in the incident.

In 2012, when asked if he personally uses McAfee anti-virus, McAfee replied by saying, “I take it off… it's too annoying.” In June, he released a video -- entitled “How To Uninstall McAfee Antivirus” -- featuring smoking, drugs, guns and vulgarity.