CORRECT: McAfee To Launch Identity Protection Service For Consumers

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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