Last year, U.S. businesses suffered almost 1,500 data breaches, exposing more than 160 million sensitive records. This year, the trend has only continued with major data breaches hitting the headlines every week. It’s undeniable – with cybercriminals scouring the internet for server vulnerabilities every minute of every day, data breaches are prevalent and constant pitfalls in our digital lifestyles. To help keep their damage at bay, we are proud to introduce the world to Avast BreachGuard, our new privacy software that gives users better control over their personal data.
Avast BreachGuard takes a three-pronged approach to protecting your data – it monitors, removes, and advises. Here’s how it works:
- Monitor – BreachGuard scans for your leaked personal information 24/7, immediately alerting you if it ever shows up in a data breach or anywhere on the dark web.
- Remove – Whenever your information is found exposed in an online database, BreachGuard’s automatic data broker removal service sends a request to remove it.
- Advise – BreachGuard offers resources to proactively enhance your online privacy, including how-to guides for Facebook, Google Maps, and other common internet services and apps.
The ugly truth about data breaches is that it’s not only the criminal element that exposes our data. All of us are vulnerable to perfectly legal third-party data miners, which are planted on certain webpages to gather information about their visitors. Marketing companies use the data collected by these trackers to target individual users with relevant ads and marketing initiatives.
Avast Head of Consumer Privacy Chandler Givens discusses legal tracking and more privacy concerns in this special Q&A video where he explains BreachGuard, describing its functions and benefits in more detail, as well as the risks associated with having your data exposed in a breach.
At present, Avast BreachGuard is available for download in the U.S. only. It will be made available to other markets later this year.
