Question of the week:  First it was Facebook, then Living Social, then LinkedIn, now Twitter accounts have been hacked. How can I keep my business and personal accounts from being hacked, if the big boys can’t even protect theirs?

You are right. It seems like every week we hear about another major website or an account on a social network being hacked into. Your concern is genuine, because once hackers get in they can not only gain control of your account, but they can also get your email address, passwords, and even get access to your bank account.

There are some steps you can take.

Read more…

More than 58 million American adults had at least one malware infection that affected their home PC’s performance last year. The cost of repairing the damage from those infections was nearly $4 billion. These findings are from the latest Consumer Reports’ Annual State of the Net Report published in the June issue of their respected magazine. The magazine is trusted by millions of US consumers to give honest appraisals of products.

“Our Annual State of the Net Report revealed that home computers are no safer than they were last year. Effective security software, like the ones we recommend in our latest Ratings, is essential to protect against online threats,” said Jeff Fox , Technology Editor, Consumer Reports.

Consumer Reports’ latest Ratings of Security Software revealed that some free products are sufficient for most users, offering very good protection from online threats. The full report is in the June 2013 issue of Consumer Reports and online at ConsumerReports.org. This press release gives you the highlights.

With the release of the summer blockbuster Star Trek: Into Darkness, I started thinking about the Star Trek universe, Trek-nology, and what it would be like if avast! Antivirus was adopted by Starfleet. Wouldn’t it be amusing to hear the voice of the computer echoing through the bridge, “avast! Virus Database has been updated”? As Captain Picard would say, “Make it so!”

Our beloved U.S.S. Enterprise, space station Deep Space 9, the far-flung Voyager, and even the sentient android Data experienced computer malfunctions, some of them caused by a virus. Here are a few episodes that come to mind as I imagine the possibility of avast! in the Final Frontier.

ST: TNG The Contagion

Captain Jean-Luc Picard is a student of archaeology. When a distress call comes in from the U.S.S. Yamato, engaged in an archeological investigation looking for the legendary planet Iconia, the Enterprise responds right away. But not in time to save the 1000+ crew and ship from destruction due to a computer virus. The weaponized virus was transmitted by a scan from an Iconian probe and caused dangerous systems failures by overwriting software. The Enterprise becomes infected when it downloads the Yamato logs. During the investigation, a Romulan Warbird shows up and an interstellar incident becomes imminent.

Shields up!

Apparently Starfleet’s ships don’t come equipped with virus protection software because the Yamato was destroyed when hostile, malicious threats took over their computer system, and the Enterprise was threatened as well. Avast’s shields protect different aspects of computer functions. If anything suspicious is detected, the file system shield will prevent the program from being started or the file from being opened to prevent any damage being caused to your computer and data.

Read more…

No one wants to spend time worrying about the security of their laptop or mobile phone. When things go wrong, it is very…well… frustrating.

Avast! Antivirus protects your computer and mobile phone around the clock, so you can BE FREE to enjoy your life. Show us what you do when you are free from worry and frustration. Take a photo of what it means to you to BE FREE, and enter it into our avast! Be Free photo contest. It’s easy. You can enter on our Facebook app, or through your own Twitter or Instagram account using the hashtag #avastBeFree. Once your photo is entered, invite your friends to vote for it in the photo gallery. The top voted photos will win a new Nexus 4 mobile phone or a Nexus 7 or Nexus 10 tablet!

Read more…

Today, we received an email from one of the four winners of last December’s Facebook game Member Gets Member. The object of the game was to introduce your friends to avast! Antivirus by inviting them to our Facebook page. When your friends liked our page, you earned points, and earned points gave you the chance to win a cool new Windows Surface tablet. That’s exactly what Micah, from the Philippines, did.

Hello Julia!

Micah with her prize from Avast!

Attached here is my picture with the Microsoft Surface tablet. I am very thankful of having such reward. But not only that, I am very thankful also of using Avast as my antivirus because it’s very fine and does excellent performance for my devices. I hope you guys will still make such events or contests like this Member gets Member game and keep on giving such awards for those Avast supporters and users.

Thank you so much and more power!

Micah L
One of the Microsoft Tablet Winner

We are glad to learn that you are enjoying your Microsoft Surface, Micah, and we’re happy to inform you that tomorrow a new opportunity to win will begin.

NEW PHOTO CONTEST

The #avastBeFree Photo Contest lets you express your creativity in photos. All you do is interpret our slogan avast! Be Free and enter your photo on our Facebook app, or through Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #avastBeFree. We are giving away eight Nexus devices – mobile phones and tablets, plus 100 free license of avast! Internet Security. You could be a winner!

The #avastBeFree Photo Contest begins tomorrow, Wednesday, May 15. Learn more about the contest from our blog post.

Watch the video here

Source: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/

“In the cross hairs of anonymous”

The hacktivist group Anonymous announced phase one of a massive cyberattack, called Op USA,  on U.S government and banking websites scheduled for next Tuesday, May 7. The White House, the NSA, and the FBI are included on a list of high profile government targets, and 133 financial institutions including the Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank are listed as banking targets.

Communicating through Pastebin on April 21, an Anonymous spokesperson stated, “Anonymous will make sure that this May 7th will be a day to remember.” They wrote that the reason for the attack is “…multiple war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan…”.

Anonymous posted a list of targets and mapped out the method of attacks writing, “You can not stop the internet hate machine from doxes, DNS attacks, defaces, redirects, ddos attacks, database leaks, and admin take overs.” Read more…

A YouTube video called Movies vs. Life compares scenes embellished with movie magic to their real-life equivalents. We like to think that an avast! Antivirus cameo during a computer hacking scene (pay attention around 0:22 seconds) is one of the reasons that this hilarious video has gone viral.

A round of applause from avast! to French comedy troupe Golden Moustache for producing this funny video.

Make sure you turn on captions for the English subtitles.

Once you start using avast! Free Antivirus, you quickly realize what a quality product it is and want to share it with your family members and friends. We have created an easy way for you to recommend avast!, and at the same time earn points toward a free 1-year license of avast! Internet Security.

The steps are pretty easy.

First, you need a my.avast! account. If you don’t have an account it is simple to create one.  All you need is an email address or Facebook login. Go to https://my.avast.com to create yours now or open the avast! program and go to the “Recommend” tab.  I’ll tell you some benefits of having an account at the end of this post.

Once you have a my.avast! account, you can recommend avast! Free Antivirus using your very own special download link. Share this link with friends or family easily through your social networks or email.

Your special link will look similar to this one, http://www.avast.com/get/Hcwuc5aY

You can get your own link in two places:

1. Your my.avast account web page: https://my.avast.com/recommendation

2. The avast! user interface – Click on the avast! icon in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen, then click the Recommend tab. It will look like this:

Once your friend installs avast! from your link and starts using it, a credit is counted toward your my.avast! account. When you reach 7 friends, you can download your free Internet Security license. If you have lots of friends, you can keep going – 14 friends, you get a 2-year license; 21 friends, you get a 3-year license.

Benefits of having a my.avast account

• You can register any avast! free product which you have installed and which requires registration
• You can remotely control your mobile devices on which avast! Mobile Security is installed
• You can track the basic data about all your connected devices (program/virus database version, activity log, etc.)

Thank you for using avast! Antivirus and recommending us to your friends and family. For all the latest news, fun and contest information, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Jeno (Jolli) – child survivor A7734 from Auschwitz, 4.5 years old at liberation. Born in 1940.

Seventy-three year old Menachem Bodner lost his twin brother Jeno (Jolli) 68 years ago when the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated.  He knows only one thing about his brother:  The Auschwitz ID number tattoed on his arm -  A 7734. With the help of his grandchildren and genealogist Ayana KimRon, Mr. Bodner is now using Facebook to aid in the search. When Mr. Bodner described his unlikely social media campaign he said, “I’m like a virus!  I will go viral and spread the message until I do find my brother.”

And that gave us, the most popular antivirus company in the world, an idea…

AVAST has 180 million users across the globe, and we speak to them every day in the form of our pop-up notification that tells of a virus database update. What if we could use our massive ability to crowd-source and help Mr. Bodner’s message “go viral” by telling our users about his search? Maybe, just maybe, someone among our 180 million users can provide a clue to Jeno’s fate.

Please follow the Facebook page dedicated to finding Mr. Bodner’s long-lost twin brother, A7734. If you have information that could help find Jeno, please share it there.