[Update] McAfee will offer virus protection to Samsung devices for nine more years

Update: Samsung reached out to us to clarify that its partnership with McAfee won't last nine more years and that its press release talked about the fact that the two have been in partnership for the last nine years and that partnership has now been extended for an indetermined amount of time. We apologize for the incorrect reporting.

Original story follows.

Samsung keeps its Galaxy phones, tablets, and laptops protected from malware through a pre-installed antivirus solution powered by McAfee. It comes with every modern Galaxy device you buy and will continue to be pre-installed on Galaxy phones, tablets, and laptops for at least nine more years moving forward.

Samsung and McAfee have renewed their partnership and extended it for a period of nine years (via Business Wire). The McAfee anti-malware solution, which is available for the Galaxy S23 series, the Galaxy Book 3 laptops, and older Galaxy devices out-of-the-box, will continue to keep future Samsung devices protected from threats throughout the remainder of the decade and into 2032.

Galaxies: Powered by McAfee

The last time Samsung and McAfee extended their partnership was in 2018 in anticipation of the Galaxy S9's release. Today, the built-in virus scanner in Samsung's One UI, found in the “Device protection” section in the Settings app, reads “Powered by McAfee.” And it will probably do so for nine or more years, regardless of what changes One UI will go through in the meantime.

By the way, if you own a modern Galaxy smartphone or tablet and want to run an anti-virus scan, you can do this by opening the Settings app, accessing “Battery and device care,” then tapping the “Device protection” option (it has a shield icon) and pressing the “Scan phone” or “Scan tablet” button.

However, the anti-malware solution works in the background and scans your Samsung device regularly, so you're not actually required to perform regular manual scans in order to keep your device safe from threats while browsing the web, using social media apps, or online banking apps.

McAfee Labs claims that its anti-malware solution, backed by more than 200 threat researchers, discovers 537 new and unique threats and blocks 22,250 threats every minute. It protects more than 600 million devices in 182 countries.