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mcafee

Employment outlook gets murkier at tech companies

With Microsoft having, at the very least a "hiring chill," we decided to check in with other big tech giants on their hiring plans.

It's a little hard to get a clear picture of what other companies are doing--in part because so many have already announced plans to cut jobs. Intel's workforce is down thousands from where it was a couple years ago. Hewlett-Packard has already said it plans to shave 24,000 jobs as part of its EDS purchase, while Dell and others have also been cutting back.

Yahoo, already under pressure from competitor Google … Read more

Speed up Google search in Firefox

Quiz time: What do CustomizeGoogle, GooglePreview, and McAfee SiteAdvisor have in common?

Answer: The ability to improve on Google search in the Firefox browser. For example, does this scenario sound familiar: You accidentally click on a sponsored link and have to return to the main results page to try again?

How about this one: You wasted 10 minutes clicking through search results because you can't remember the link by name, but think you can identify it by sight (so you check them all)? Or worst yet: You stumble on a dangerous link and get bogged down with malware that … Read more

McAfee aims to broaden portfolio with Secure Computing buy

Since joining McAfee from EMC, CEO Dave DeWalt has taken the company on an industry shopping spree, grabbing security companies like Onigma, Reconnex, and SafeBoot. Recent economic turmoil hasn't dissuaded the company from continuing this trend. Monday morning, McAfee announced that it will acquire venerable Secure Computing in a transaction valued at approximately $465 million.

So what do all these acquisitions bring? Diversification. In spite of its size and brand visibility, McAfee was never a niche product company in the past--strong in endpoint security, intrusion detection/prevention, and vulnerability scanning, weak or invisible in everything else. Through acquisitions, McAfee … Read more

McAfee offers $465 million for Secure Computing

Clarification, Sept. 23, 4:42 a.m. PDT: This story originally omitted mention that the $465 million total includes consideration of cash held by Secure Computing.

Security specialist McAfee on Monday announced that it has a deal in place to acquire Secure Computing.

The merger offer is pegged at $5.75 per common share in cash, which McAfee says represents a total equity value of about $413 million. The deal also includes a cash offer for outstanding shares of Secure Computing preferred stock, valued at about $84 million. Those components, less cash held by Secure Computing, bring the total value … Read more

McAfee: Brad Pitt fan sites may be bad for your computer

Want to download a Brad Pitt screen saver? What about images of Beyonce? If you're using a site you're not familiar with, you may want to reconsider.

According to McAfee's new "riskiest celebrities in cyberspace" list, when searching for "Brad Pitt," "Brad Pitt downloads," or Brad Pitt wallpaper, screen savers, and pictures, Internet users experience an 18 percent chance of stumbling upon sites containing malicious code. This includes drive-by malware that can infect your PC without asking you to download anything. Such social engineering, once reserved for e-mail, is now being … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 804: 'Spore' sporked by Dr. M

The evil power of Dr. M is even greater than we thought...strong enough, in fact, to tarnish the shining reputation of the long-awaited Spore. Also in the news today, DVD ripping goes legit, a little too late, thanks to RealDVD, but we determine it's probably not worth getting sued over. And we put gurus against geniuses in a battle to the tech support death. Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 804

Happy Birthday Google - 10 http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9930 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-09-06-google-ten-years_N.htm

DVD ripping goes legit with RealDVD … Read more

McAfee brings nearly instant malware updates

What if your desktop security application could detect and remove a new threat that was only minutes old? That's the impetus behind McAfee Artemis Technology, announced on Monday.

Artemis, which McAfee plans to market within its 2009 consumer products as "Active Protection," is not focused on hourly updates, or even 15-minute updates, as rival Symantec has. It means instant detection, said Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications for McAfee Avert Labs.

McAfee's use of Artemis is similar to Trend Micro's use of cloud-based computing to analyze and produce new signature files within 15 … Read more

McAfee reports on spam in the real world

Taking a cue from Morgan Spurlock who lived on fast food for 30 days in the Super Size Me documentary, McAfee gathered volunteers from around the world who would, for one hour a day, surf the Internet, signing up for various newsletters, filling in various forms. As they did so, the participants were asked to blog about their experiences.

On Tuesday, McAfee released the results of the experiment it called S.P.A.M., or Spammed Persistently All Month.

Over the course of the month, McAfee's test subjects accumulated 104,000 spam messages, or roughly 70 per day per … Read more

Security Bites 106: McAfee plays with spam

McAfee released on Tuesday the results of a monthlong spam experiment. The security company provided 50 people worldwide with a clean laptop armed only with antivirus protection (no anti-spam protection) and a brand new domain for e-mail. McAfee then asked them to surf the Net and blog about their experiences.

Within the first 24 hours, the individuals received their first spam e-mail in the S.P.A.M. (Spammed Persistently All Month) Experiment.

Over the course of 30 days, McAfee's test subjects accumulated 104,000 spam e-mails, or roughly 70 spam messages per day per recipient. Put another way, … Read more