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McAfree Now a Standalone Company, Implications for Cybersecurity Industry

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McAfee, the globally trusted security provider, has commenced operating as a new standalone company.

As a standalone business, McAfee is one of the world’s largest pure-play cybersecurity firms. Built on the belief that “Together is Power,” the new McAfee will expand upon its leading security solutions platform to better enable customers to effectively identify and orchestrate responses to cyber-threats.

The launch of McAfee marks the closing of the previously announced investment by TPG and Intel Corporation (INTC) to establish a pure-play cybersecurity company with access to significant capital, operational and technology resources.

Additionally, McAfee announced that leading private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo has joined, as a minority investor in the Company, through an agreement with TPG. As previously announced, Intel is retaining a 49 percent equity stake in the new entity.

With the help of its new investment partners, McAfee will apply greater market focus, build its platform and target new financial, operational and technology investments to better address the cybersecurity market’s significant global growth opportunity.

Intel Senior Vice President and General Manager Chris Young will lead the new McAfee as Chief Executive Officer. TPG Partner Bryan Taylor has been named Chairman of the Board.

“Cybersecurity is the greatest challenge of the connected age, weighing heavily on the minds of parents, executives and world leaders alike,” said Christopher Young, CEO of McAfee. “As a standalone company with a clear purpose, McAfee gains the agility to unite people, technology and organizations against our common adversaries and ensure our technology-driven future is safe.”

“We offer Chris Young and the McAfee team our full support as they establish themselves as one of the largest pure-play cybersecurity companies in the industry,” said Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO. “Security remains important to Intel, and in addition to our equity position and ongoing collaboration with McAfee, Intel will continue to integrate industry-leading security and privacy capabilities in our products from the cloud to billions of smart, connected computing devices.”

“Since its founding, McAfee has been dedicated to offering its customers industry-leading cybersecurity solutions,” said Bryan Taylor, Partner at TPG Capital and Chairman of the Board at McAfee. “Its ongoing commitment to product innovation, a rich partner ecosystem, and superior customer service has created a trusted brand that will thrive as a standalone entity. We look forward to working with the company and our partners to accelerate growth and continue building a leading cybersecurity platform that serves to protect customers in today’s changing environment.”

“McAfee is a global organization with a 30-year history and a brand known the world over for innovation, trust and collaboration. Given our years of focus on the security software sector, we see great opportunity for McAfee to continue to advance and innovate,” said Seth Boro, a Managing Partner at Thoma Bravo. “Our deep sector knowledge and history of helping build successful businesses will be an asset to the company, and we look forward to working with the management team and our colleagues at TPG and Intel to guide McAfee through its next chapter of growth.”

The New McAfee
The company also outlined a new strategic vision, focused on innovation, trust, and collaboration.

Innovation
McAfee represents more than 7,500 of the industry’s most talented cybersecurity professionals, while holding more than 1,200 security technology patents and ongoing industry recognition for its products.

McAfee is also home to McAfee Labs, one of the world’s leading sources for cyber-threat intelligence.

McAfee’s people, technology and insights enable McAfee solutions to correlate real-world data collected from millions of sensors across key threat vectors and inform the next generations of McAfee product innovation.

Trust
From the moment the first worm was unleashed on the internet in 1988, to the massive 2016 Mirai distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, the cybersecurity industry has witnessed exponential growth in the volume and variety of cyber-threats. For the last three decades, McAfee has earned the trust of consumers, businesses and governments by delivering practical solutions to address these threats.

Today, McAfee’s award winning products and solutions today protect more than 74.9 million endpoints daily, including 87% of the world’s largest banks and Fortune 100 firms and more than 263 million consumer endpoints.

Collaboration
McAfee believes in the power of working together—only when people, technology and organizations work together can we become safer. The McAfee Security Innovation Alliance, the industry’s premier technology partnering program, boasts more than 135 partners globally.

Over the past year, more than 30 partners have integrated or planned integrations with the McAfee Data Exchange Layer (DXL), the industry-endorsed communication fabric providing real-time interaction between applications.

Goldman Sachs, & Co., Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, RBC Capital Markets, and UBS Investment Bank served as financial advisors to TPG and Thoma Bravo, and Allen & Company LLC served as financial advisor to Intel. Ropes & Gray served as legal advisors to TPG, Skadden LLP, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom served as legal advisors to Intel, and Kirkland & Ellis served as legal advisors to Thoma Bravo.

 


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Firm Reports a 48% Increase in Malicious Packages Threatening Software Supply Chains

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Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) experts at the 10th annual Cyber Security Weekend – META 2025 held recently, talked about supply chain attacks and reported that by the end of 2024 a total of 14,000 malicious packages were found in open-source projects, a 48% increase compared to the end of 2023. 42 million versions of open-source packages have been examined by Kaspersky throughout 2024 in search for vulnerabilities.

Open-source is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. Popular open-source packages include GoMod, Maven, NuGet, npm, PyPI, and others.

These are tools that power countless applications and help developers easily find, install, and manage pre-built code libraries, making it simpler to build software by reusing code others have written. Attackers take advantage of the popularity of these and other packages.

In March 2025, the Lazarus Group was reported to have deployed several malicious npm packages, which were downloaded multiple times before removal. These packages contained malware to steal credentials, cryptocurrency wallet data, and deploy backdoors, targeting developers’ systems across Windows, macOS, and Linux.

The attack leveraged GitHub repositories for added legitimacy, highlighting the group’s sophisticated supply chain tactics. Kaspersky’s GReAT also found other npm packages related to this attack. Malicious npm packages could have been integrated into web development, cryptocurrency platforms, and enterprise software, risking widespread data theft and financial losses.

In 2024, a sophisticated backdoor was discovered in XZ Utils versions 5.6.0 and 5.6.1, a widely used compression library in Linux distributions. Inserted by a trusted contributor, the malicious code targeted SSH servers, enabling remote command execution and threatening countless systems globally.

Detected before widespread exploitation due to performance anomalies, the incident highlighted the dangers of supply chain attacks. XZ Utils is integral to operating systems, cloud servers, and IoT devices, making its compromise a threat to critical infrastructure and enterprise networks.

In 2024, Kaspersky’s GReAT discovered that attackers uploaded malicious Python packages like chatgpt-python and chatgpt-wrapper to PyPI, mimicking legitimate tools for interacting with ChatGPT APIs.

These packages, designed to steal credentials and deploy backdoors, capitalised on the popularity of AI development to trick developers into downloading them. These packages could have been used in AI development, chatbot integrations, and data analytics platforms, endangering sensitive AI workflows and user data.

“Open-source software is the backbone of many modern solutions, but its openness is being weaponised. The 50% rise in malicious packages by the end of 2024 shows attackers are actively embedding sophisticated backdoors and data stealers in popular packages, which millions rely on.

“Without rigorous vetting and real-time monitoring, a single compromised package can trigger a global breach. Organisations need to secure the supply chain before the next XZ Utils-level attack succeeds,” comments Dmitry Galov, Head of Research Center for Russia and CIS at Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team.


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NDPC Probes Suspected Data Breach in Examination Centres

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Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has launched an investigation into allegations that the confidentiality and integrity of candidates’ personal data may have been compromised by hackers.

NDPC Probes Suspected Data Breach in Examination Centres

The Commission initiated the inquiry following concerns over possible data breaches during examinations.

Preliminary findings indicate that several examination centres may not have implemented adequate technical and organizational measures to safeguard candidates’ personal information, as required under data protection regulations.

Although the incident reportedly affected 379, 997 candidates, the NDPC’s investigation is poised to cover a systemic audit of data processing and third parties.

It will be recalled that JAMB recently admitted that a technical error on its platform affected a total of 379,997 candidates in 157 examination centres across Lagos and the South-East.

Further investigation led to the arrest of at least 20 suspects who are currently in the custody of the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Police Force.

 

 

 


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Nigeria Among Hotspots as Kaspersky Warns of Rising Ransomware Threat in Africa

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Cyber security firm, Kaspersky, has once again warned that sophisticated cybercriminals increasingly target Africa as ransomware and advanced persistent threats (APTs) escalate across the region.

Speaking at the company’s annual Cyber Security Weekend for the Middle East, Turkiye and Africa (META) region, the cybersecurity firm’s Global Research and Analysis Team highlighted growing digital threats affecting African nations.

Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa emerged as hotspots, with Kenya recording one of the highest web threat incident rates at 20.1% in first quarter 2025.

“While ransomware is less prevalent in Africa due to lower levels of digitisation and economic constraints, countries like South Africa and Nigeria are seeing a sharp rise in attacks,” said Sergey Lozhkin, head of META and APAC regions at Kaspersky.

Kaspersky noted a 0.01 percentage point increase in African ransomware cases year-on-year, reaching 0.41%, still below global and Middle Eastern averages, but a troubling sign for the continent’s emerging digital infrastructure.

Experts warned that attackers are refining their tactics, shifting focus to unconventional entry points like IoT devices, smart appliances, and misconfigured hardware.

“As these economies expand digitally, sectors such as manufacturing, finance and government are becoming key targets,” said Lozhkin

The cyber-crime landscape is evolving quickly, fuelled by AI tools and dark web access to large language models, which enable less skilled actors to launch convincing phishing and malware campaigns.

Groups like FunkSec, which uses AI-generated code and a low-cost ransom model, are redefining ransomware operations.

“African organisations face the dual challenge of expanding digital footprints and limited cybersecurity awareness. This makes layered defense strategies, including network segmentation, real-time monitoring and regular staff training, essential,” stated Lozhkin

Kaspersky continues to monitor 25 active APT groups in the META region, including SideWinder and MuddyWater, some of which are known to target African institutions.

To bolster defenses, the firm recommends using tools such as its free Anti-Ransomware Tool for Business and the Kaspersky Next suite for threat visibility and response.

 


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