CORRECT: McAfee To Launch Identity Protection Service For Consumers
July 13 2010 - 11:42PM
Dow Jones News
Computer security vendor McAfee Inc. (MFE) on Wednesday plans to
begin selling a new service that will monitor online records for
evidence of consumer identity theft.
Citing research that says the financial damage of identity theft
increases the longer it goes undetected, the Santa Clara,
Calif.-based company said its McAfee Identity Protection service
will quickly alert users to potential identity-theft threats.
The new product comes at a time when identity theft has grown.
There were 11.1 million victims of identity theft in 2009 in the
United States alone--which is more than in any of the previous six
years, said Chandra Sekar, a senior product marketing manager at
McAfee, citing figures from Javelin Strategy and Research. In each
case, the consumer was defrauded an average of $4,841.
To protect against such damage, the service will, in part, check
millions of Internet black-market sites, chat rooms, blogs, and
emails where identity thieves obtain stolen personal information.
Each day, the service will also check with credit bureaus to see if
there are any red flags in a consumer's credit file, such as the
creation of a new account. Consumers are alerted by email or text
if suspicious activity is detected.
If a consumer suffers identity theft, call center personnel will
help the consumer cancel credit cards, file a police report and
take the other appropriate steps to correct for the ID theft. If
the theft is due to a failure in McAfee Identity Protection, the
company will cover any fraud-related costs up to $1 million, Sekar
said.
McAfee Identity Protection includes unlimited access to credit
reports from the Experian credit bureau and will cost $109.99 for
an annual subscription or $9.99 a month, per individual. A family
option for two people will cost $199.99 annually or $16.99 per
month. McAfee plans to bundle the service with other of its
security products later this year.
-By Jeanette Borzo, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-765-8230;
jeanette.borzo@dowjones.com
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