McAfee launches identity theft protection program

Security firm McAfee has introduced the new Identity Protection service, designed to help prevent cases of serious identity theft leading to financial losses.

“There have been more victims of identity theft in the last year than any other time in the past six years, and consumers repeatedly rank identity theft as a top concern because of the substantial remediation costs,” Todd Gebhart, executive vice president of McAfee consumer, mobile and small business, said in a statement.

The company references a study undertaken by Javelin Research, which found “individuals who took six months to detect fraud suffered more than 14 times the cost of those victims who discovered fraud in its early stages”.

The service will cancel stolen credit or debit cards, order new ones, provide reports from Experian as well as help for dealing with the effects of the identity theft in question.
McAfee promises to provide “proactive identity surveillance… by providing multiple layers of protection”, which includes daily monitoring of credit reporting agencies and public records, along with scans of black market sites.