Private equity firm Thoma Bravo is in early talks to buy security software company McAfee from TPG Capital and Intel, CNBC reported.
Intel, which paid $7.7 billion for California-based McAfee in 2011, completed the sale of a 51 percent stake in the company to TPG at a $4.2 billion enterprise value last year.
Thoma Bravo has been seeking to consolidate the cyber security sector.
Thoma Bravo in October announced a $2.1 billion acquisition of Imperva and last month announced the acquisition of another cyber security firm called Veracode from Broadcom  for $950 million.
Last month, Reuters reported that Thoma Bravo had approached Symantec with a takeover offer.