Today, McAfee announced its latest consumer security portfolio that includes enhanced system performance and increased detection effectiveness, plus privacy and security enhancements, all enabling consumers to enjoy peace of mind as they go about their digital lives.
As today’s increasingly connected world continues to evolve, so does the cyber threat landscape. McAfee’s updated portfolio offers solutions for users across devices and platforms allowing its customers to protect what matters most to them wherever and whenever they need it. To protect a user’s privacy McAfee’s VPN service, McAfee Safe Connect, has been enhanced with app level protection and auto-connecting which automatically activates VPN when connecting to untrusted Wi-Fi networks. In addition, McAfee’s VPN service will be included with McAfee Total Protection (10 device version) and McAfee LiveSafe. Other innovations include protection against malicious coin-mining with McAfee Cryptojacking Blocker, and the introduction of a completely new product – McAfee Gamer Security.
“Consumers’ privacy and security concerns continue to grow as they spend increasingly more time online and use a growing number of cloud services, and the approach to protecting themselves and their families is not one-size-fits all,” said Gary Davis, Chief Consumer Security Evangelist at McAfee. “Our new lineup reflects features that will make it easier than ever to protect what matters most to our customers in their daily online activities, while delivering enhanced performance and industry leading security.”
Enhanced Privacy Whenever, Wherever
Given consumers now go online whenever and wherever they can, internet privacy concerns have increased. Until recently, having a VPN service on devices was seen as less important and an add-on if users wanted to watch local online video content while traveling. However, a recent study by McAfee found 90% of consumers are very concerned about their internet privacy.1
Available on Windows, Android, iOS and for download via various app stores, McAfee Safe Connect protects user privacy by encrypting online activity, meaning users can browse privately and enjoy unlimited data use. To improve the user experience, this year’s lineup includes the following enhancements that allow users to enjoy their online activities at home and on the go:
- Proprietary Tunneling Technology – Leverages industrial-strength encryption to further protect users’ personal information
- App Level Protection – Specific to Android, this allows users to turn VPN protection off for certain apps as not all apps work well with a VPN
- Auto-Connecting – Automatically switches to a VPN connection for untrusted Wi-Fi networks
- Wi-Fi Activity – Provides a view of the number of protected and unprotected Wi-Fi connections that have been used
More Secure Online Experiences
According to the McAfee Labs Threats Report: August 2019, malware threats continue to increase year-over-year, with total malware growing 30% over the past four quarters and mobile malware 29%. Researchers also found that ransomware growth was 24% year over year and that cybercriminals are continuing their focus on coin miner malware, which saw a quarterly growth of 30 percent, with total coin mining malware samples growing to 16 million samples – demonstrating how cybercriminals are findings ways in without raising users’ awareness or prompting as seen with ransomware.
McAfee continues to innovate to better protect customers from all forms of malware including ransomware with its Ransom Guard technology, while adding features that support its commitment to helping customers enjoy a secure and private digital life. The latest addition is Cryptojacking Blocker, which has been added to McAfee Web Advisor and protects against malicious coin-mining. Cryptojacking Blocker detects more than 150 variants and scripts of coin mining malware on infected websites and blocks this malicious code from running.
Adapting to Consumers’ Digital Lifestyles
For PC gamers, the age-old compromise has been between security and performance. From a security standpoint, gamers are among the most connected audiences, and with the growing popularity of PC gaming as a whole, security remains a critical consideration. A recent McAfee survey found that 64 percent of PC gamers were directly affected by a cyber-attack or know someone who has been. At the same time, gamers want to maximize their in-game performance and frames per second (FPS) while ensuring gameplay is free from distractions like application popups.
McAfee has gone beyond traditional antivirus to build a product designed to satisfy the unique needs of the large and growing PC gaming audience. The newly-launched McAfee Gamer Security includes the following key features:
- MicroAV Engine – Offloads threat detection to the cloud, freeing up both storage and memory, to deliver better performance than built-in antivirus
- Game Boost Technology – Intelligently increases performance to key system resources that drive in-game performance and frames per second (FPS)
- Realtime & Historical Performance Monitoring – Keep tabs on the metrics that matter most in-game, and review the past 5 games’ stats to validate hardware performance
- App Manager – Auto-filters to the selected performance metric, enabling gamers to quickly identify and manually kill resource-hogging apps on the fly
- Customizable Settings – Adjust Mcafee Gamer Security’s performance and behavior to create your ideal gaming profile, optimized for your gaming hardware
- Notification Suppression – Application pop-ups that would otherwise interrupt the gaming experience are suppressed automatically while gaming
McAfee Gamer Security is available now in the U.S. for one PC at $59.99/year. Availability in other regions is expected throughout the second half of Q4.
For more information on the consumer product lineup, visit www.mcafee.com/consumer.
Resources:
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What Really Matters Survey, April 2019
Methodology: Survey of 395 adults in North America between the ages of 25 to 55 in April 2019, conducted by Response Marketing on behalf of McAfee.
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