McAfee Inc, the security software provider, said on Wednesday that reviewers discovered problems in the dating of some of its option grants leading to a possible restatement in financial data.

McAfee said a special committee found accounting dates for some option grants in the past differed from the measurement dates previously used for such awards. Consequently, the company said that it will more likely than not restate its results for the first quarter of 2006, and annual reports dating back to 2001. Data currently issued should not be relied upon, the company stated.

The news comes in the midst of a slew of other technology firms that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently investigating. Of them, Apple Computer, Take-Two Interactive, CNET, and Nvidia are currently being investigated and several others have already restated previous results.

BEA Systems Inc, Marvell Technology Group Ltd and Cablevision Systems Corp, are among those that issued statements about stock option investigations Wednesday.

The current scrutiny comes after Erik Lie, an associate professor of finance at the University of Iowa issued a report in the journal Management Science, noting that the granting of options to executives at several companies preceded big run-ups in the stock price.

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