By now, avast! users are aware of the importance of creating strong computer passwords, and guarding their Social Security number like a trained Doberman. But what about the humble four-digit personal identification number (PIN)? PINs are security features just like passwords. They give access to your mobile phone, credit card, bank account, and numerous other things. My garage door opener even has a keypad and PIN. Because it’s the key that unlocks so many doors, literally and figuratively, it pays to keep your PINs safe.

Here are some things to remember when choosing a PIN:

• Be more original than 1234. One in 10 people use this number combination. Together with 1111 and 0000, these three combinations make up nearly 20% of PINs. Think of it this way, if you find an ATM card on the floor, you have a 1 in 10 chance of getting the correct number if you type 1-2-3-4 .
• Using your birthdate as a PIN is a bad idea. Everyone carries their driver’s license in their wallet with their ATM card. The birthday information gives a wallet thief both the lock and key in a convenient location. One study said that one out of 15 wallet thief victim’s also had their ATM raided!
• Forget about your address too. Your house or apartment number is also printed on your driver’s license, so it’s easily found.
• Keep LOVE in your heart, not on your phone. 5683, which spells out “love” on the keypad is very popular.  Use a less popular word, maybe 9278, which spells “wart.”

Here are some tips to secure (and remember) your PIN:

• Use the bank assigned number. Just don’t write it on your ATM card.
• An old phone number, student or work ID is good, as long as they’re not listed anywhere.
• Choose a meaningful number. The score of the big game (your favorite basketball team won 80-58, so the PIN is 8058).
• Base the number on a phrase instead of a word, such as 2432 for “Avast is FREEking awesome” (AIFA).
• Hide the number in a fake contact. If you have too many PINs to remember, make up a fake contact with a fake phone number and keep it in your phone. Just don’t let the battery run out!

Share your tips in for creating strong PINs and how to remember them in the comments section.  And please follow us on social media. We can be found on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

• 

Does this internet browser window look familiar to you?

If so, you may be the victim of unwanted multiple browser toolbars. These browser add-ons have become a real problem in the last couple of years. Unfortunately, much free software nowadays comes with some unwanted add-ons; in most cases a so-called browser toolbar is installed. Many toolbars can be quite annoying because they:

Read more…

• 

Let us present the long-term analysis of malware which was designed to steal credentials from more than 25 largest banking and payment systems in Brazil. The unique features of this banking malware include the usage of valid digital certificates, 3 years of evolution and stealing credentials from e-commerce admin pages. This feature opens doors for attackers, who can then log in to e-commerce systems and steal information about customers and their payments.

This malware family combines all of these powerful functionalities and serves as a comprehensive tool for stealing money and sensitive personal data with dangerous efficiency.

Download full whitepaper in PDF format here.

• 

In this blog post, we will look at the attack originating from hxxp://www.spc.or.kr/ and targeting several major Korean banks.

The site, spc.or.kr, is a legitimate Korean website which belongs to Korea Software Property Right Council (SPC). After opening the site and showing its source code, we looked into the included script /js/common1.js. This script includes another two javascripts ( the third one is commented out ). When we opened both of these scripts, we noticed a suspicious iframe tag at the end of /js/screen1.js. This iframe tag led us to rootadmina2012.com, which is the main attack site.

Read more…

• 

The “Jamaican lottery scam,” also known as advanced-fee fraud, is made up of scam artists that trick people, mostly senior citizens, out of their money with a false notification of a lottery winning, inheritance or Publisher Clearing House sweepstakes prize. In these “granny scams”, the fraudsters convince the victim to send money in order to secure their winnings.

• A 79-year-old woman from Maryland received a phone call announcing that she had won sweepstakes money during a time when she was struggling to pay her family’s hospital bills. Over seven months, she was scammed out of $30,000.
• An 80-year-old man from an affluent neighborhood in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan got caught up in a scam and it cost him $48,000 before he realized he was being played. The con started with a letter stating, “You’ve won $ 2.5 million and a brand new Mercedes Benz.” The catch was he needed to send cash up front to collect the winnings. Police say that the scammers contacted the man every day and he repeatedly sent money cards that were transferred into cash.
• A woman in Colorado received a message that she won a high value lottery from a person pretending to be her Facebook friend. The fake friend told Michelle Harlow that she won $90,000 dollars and that Harlow was qualified to get the same prize. Harlow said a red flag went up in her mind when the person asked for a $500 money order.

Read more…

• 

Part time job for a social media agent  

Do you blog, comment, respond, post, chat, like, re-tweet, add to circles, pin…? Do you monitor what’s hot on social media in your language? Do you have 2 hours a day that you can fully dedicate to avast! social media? Can you be the eyes and ears of avast! in your country as if your own reputation depended on it?

We seek a highly motivated individual with experience and fanatical passion for blogging, micro-blogging and community participation to simply communicate with avast! followers in your mother tongue. You will help us approach new users in your country, so we can spread avast! Free Antivirus across the globe!

This is a part time position – at least 10 hours a week

That will not happen to you

Read more…

• 

Several days ago we received a complaint about javascrpt.ru. After a bit of research, we found that it tries to mimic ajax.google.com and jquery, but the code is an obfuscated/packed redirector.

After removing two layers of obfuscation, we found a list of conditions checking visitors’ user Agent. From these conditions. we got a clue and focused on mobile devices.

Read more…

• 

Question of the week:  I just updated my avast to version 8. The new look is great! There’s a feature called Software Updater that looks interesting. How do I use it?

Great question, and thanks for the compliment on avast! 8’s new look. To answer your question about the new avast! Software Updater, let me set the stage for you so you will understand why Software Updater is so useful for most users. You are a busy person juggling family and work, maybe even taking a few classes. You use your personal computer to pay bills, learn how to fix a leaky faucet, and email your child’s teacher. You are concerned with online security, but there are only so many hours in the day, right?

You heard about the latest Java exploit, but you’re not sure what it is, how to fix it, or if you even need it. Here’s some advice from Oracle, “In order to protect themselves, desktop users should only allow the execution of applets when they expect such applets and trust their origin.” Um…what?

And wasn’t there something about an Adobe Flash Player vulnerability?  Adobe says, “Users of Adobe Flash Player 11.5.502.135 and earlier versions for Windows should update to Adobe Flash Player 11.5.502.146.” Um, OK…which version do I have? Where do I find it? HELP!!

When it comes to your computer’s security, you can be guaranteed that this or that exploit, vulnerability or hack is taking place. How can a normal person be expected to stay on top of it all? You can’t, and that’s where avast! can help. Read more…

• 

As most of our readers and fans know, we now protect more devices (PC, Mac, and Android) globally than any other antivirus provider.

As our business model is such that our freemium software serves as our ‘advertising’ (we don’t do traditional advertising), and most of our users come to us via referrals, we receive quite a bit of thanks from avast! users around the world.

And as our software is available in about 40 languages, we hear from grateful people in Spanish, German, Russian, French, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Polish, English, and of course, in addition to a few others, the native Czech of the land where we are headquartered.

For years we put selections of this positive feedback on our webpages at avast.com. But recently the world has been shifting toward social media based feedback, which means we don’t hear as much from avast! users through our web contact form (and that’s ok!).

But now and then we still do. And occasionally a message really catches our eye. Today, that message came from Wyoming, USA, in perfect ‘cowboy’ speak.  Read more…

•