To understand the modern cybersecurity landscape, one must look back at the late 1990s and early 2000s—a period of rapid fragmentation followed by aggressive consolidation. This was an era before "endpoint protection platforms" existed. Instead, the market was divided into distinct silos: antivirus (McAfee Associates), network analysis (Network General), desktop policy management (Helix Software Company), and cryptography (PGP Corporation). The story of how these four entities merged is not a simple acquisition by a single buyer, but a complex web of reverse mergers, spin-offs, and private equity engineering that ultimately reshaped enterprise security.
What remained of Network Associates was just the McAfee antivirus business. In , the company officially renamed itself McAfee, Inc. , formally burying the Network General and Helix lineages.
The dominant force in antivirus software, providing the core security engine for the new company.