McAfee uses web beacons that can be used to track and serve advertising to users (Windows)

HelpNet Security ^ | Mar 17, 2916 | Zeljka Zorz

[dayglored]

A test of seven OEM laptops running Windows has shown consistent privacy and security issues, including an interesting revelation that the McAfee Antivirus running on six of them is using web beacons to serve ads and possibly even track users online.

The seven laptops – Lenovo Flex 3, Lenovo G50-80 (UK version), HP Envy, HP Stream x360 (Microsoft Signature Edition), HP Stream (UK version), Acer Aspire F15 (UK version), and Dell Inspiron 14 (Canada version) – have been tested by the security research team of Duo Security by simply sniffing the traffic sent from and to them once they have been taken out of the box, plugged in, and connected to a network.

“The focus of our research was on home systems accessing multiple networks, including public Wi-Fi and the corporate environment. However, this research also impacts corporate enterprises looking to improve both security and privacy settings for Windows 8.1 and Windows 10,” they explained.

“Within the first few packets on all seven laptops, there were issues. It took awhile to figure them out, as much of the traffic was encrypted and one had to go by server hostname or calling program name, or by reverse-engineering the calling code to find out what was going on,” they pointed out.

...

Unfortunately, changing privacy settings is not as straightforward as one would hope. In some cases, the user would have to disable a service or create/adjust registry keys – and that’s not something that most users know how to do.

After Patch Tuesday updates, many of the privacy settings are reset to their default settings, and the user doesn’t get notified of this.

[dayglored]

Yikes.

[dayglored]

McAfee and Windows 10 - what a combo ... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: just search on keyword "windowspinglist".

[relictele]

This company and its products have been rubbish since the days of DOS.

[apocalypto]

for later

[Gaffer]

I’ve tried McAfee and I have tried Norton et al....they are all time-vampires. They slow down your computer until they are virtually worthless. Their customer/complaint service sucks also.

[refreshed]

It’s true. Not only a resource hog, but if preinstalled in anything you buy it is almost impossible to remove without wiping the hard drive. I still cannot get it off my android phone. It IS a virus and malware in its own special, computer-crashing way.

[refreshed]

I fear my former all-time favorite, AVG is going down this road. I recently switched to Panda. Good results so far. I tried Avast again for awhile, but it seemed to slow things down quite a bit.

[oh8eleven]

This company and its products have been rubbish since the days of DOS.
I've used McAfee on all my PCs and laptops for almost 10 years without a problem. Your results may vary.

[PAR35]

I gave up a few years ago, and went with the Microsoft product. They aren’t going to do any more spying with that than they already do with Windows and Office. I would join in calling Norton and McAfee part of the problem, not a solution. Before I went to Microsoft, I used AVG and Avast for a few years - much better than the resource hogs from Norton or McAfee.

[Gaffer]

They are all looking for new streams of revenue. If you think about it, they aren’t satisfied with existing licenses and renewals and the pains of updating them and keeping them current. They aren’t attracting enough new sign-ons, so they are relegated to finding other means to increase the revenue stream. Things like specialized ad targeting and OEM prodding. It stinks. Screw them.

[Bob434]

it is interestingness that things like spy-bot and such didn’t detect these web beacons apparently?

[pepsi_junkie]

I do not trust McAfee. I’ve had them installed on various PCs and I consider them an infection. They cripple my machine as bad as any virus would and I don’t trust them with my data either. So how do you define malware? Seems to fit.

[Paladin2]

Do Ghostery and NoScript extinguish these Beacons?

[rarestia]

Windows Defender, built into the OS since Windows 7, is now an enterprise-class endpoint protection suite and works as good as and even better than McAfee and Norton/Symantec offerings when comparing system runtime efficiency. Most modern threats come from malware. Viruses are few and far between nowadays.

McAfee is installed “free” on most new computers. As I’ve said recently, “if it’s free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product.” This proves that point.

[wally_bert]

Nothing but problems and ineffectiveness from McAfee since always.

Symantec isn’t any better.

All of corporate systems run McAfee and have failed to stop anything. I’m glad there haven’t been many instances.

Windows Defender has done better.

[martin_fierro]

John McAfee seems like a reasonable sort.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Keeps on plugging the Bath Salts...

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[WMarshal]

“if it’s free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product.”

I never heard that saying before. It is worth repeating.

[dayglored]

> “if it’s free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product.”

Yes, exactly. And yet the vast majority of users still believe in the Free Lunch...