Items tagged with Avast
Some people may say, “Don't talk to me until I have had my coffee,” but what if they could not have coffee because of a ransomware attack? According to a researcher at Avast, IoT devices, such as smart coffee makers, can be vulnerable to attacks. Security researcher Martin Hron remarks “firmware is a new software,” and that software can be exploited. Typically, smart IoT devices have firmware onboard that is used with an API, while users expect that not too much harm can come from the API and firmware. This is not the case, as Hron states “We used to trust that hardware, such as a common kitchen appliance, could be trusted and could not be easily altered without...
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Earlier this week, we reported that Avast was under fire for its data privacy policies (or lack thereof) for its free antivirus software. Through its subsidiary Jumpshot, Avast sold vast amounts of user data to big name customers like Google and Microsoft (among others). Although Avast claimed that the data that it obtained and transmitted to these companies via Jumpshot was "fully de-identified and aggregated", it was rather easy to piece the data together including a user's device ID, time stamps, and other pertinent details to track a person across the web. "Maybe the (Jumpshot) data itself is not identifying people," said privacy researcher Gunes Acar earlier this week in reference...
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Avast is a well-known company that sells antivirus software, and provides free versions for Windows and macOS platforms. However, the company has come under fire in recent months due to a browser extension that was found to be sending user data to third-party marketing firms. At the time, Avast reassured users that their data was "fully de-identified and aggregated" during this process. However, an investigation by Motherboard and PCMag has uncovered that Avast is bending at the truth a bit, as it's relatively easy for marketers to build a profile on individuals, their purchase habits, and their browser click history. All of this trickery stems from Avast subsidiary Jumpshot,...
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On Friday, we reported that Microsoft has been actively blocking the Windows 10 April 2018 Update from installing on PCs that are running Avast antivirus software. At the time, Avast explained that it was working with Microsoft to come up with a software fix to address the issues, but added "unfortunately right now neither MS nor us are able to reproduce the issue." Well, we can now report some good news for those that use Avast and want to get the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, or those that previously installed the update (before Microsoft blocked it) and now find themselves with an unusable computer. Avast and Microsoft determined that the Avast Behavior Shield is what's...
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Microsoft has not seen a ton of issues rolling out its April 2018 Update for Windows 10, though there have been some snags along the way, prompting the company to block the update on some machines. We saw that recently when Microsoft halted the update to machines running an Intel SSD 600p or SSD Pro 6000 series drive until a fix could be issued, and now we're seeing it again, this time on systems running Avast's antivirus software. Over on Reddit, it's noted that several Avast users have experienced trouble trying to install the update. Affected systems would boot to a blue screen asking the user to choose a keyboard language, after doing so, they would be presented with three options—Windows...
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Researchers have still been working their way through the hack that resulted in the very popular CCleaner security app being used as a host for malware. The initial attack was thought by many to have caused minimal harm to computer systems that were infected, but it looks like there was a secondary attack that may be more nefarious. According to the researchers, the hackers were able to piggyback on that initial malware wave and install a second piece of malicious software on the computers working daily in some of the biggest tech firms around the world. The real target of this attack is now thought to have been major tech firms like Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Sony, Intel and others according...
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Users of the popular CCleaner program by Piriform are being advised to update the application after researchers at Cisco's Talos division discovered hackers had hidden malware inside. The contaminated utility served as a beacon call for additional forms of malware—using a backdoor, an attacker could run code from a remote IP address. The threat was discovered in CCleaner 5.33 released on August 15, and CCleaner Cloud 1.07 released on August 24. According to Piriform, which is owned by security outfit Avast, the affected version of CCleaner may have been used by up to 3 percent of its userbase. That works out to around 2.27 million people, by the company's own accounting. "The compromise could...
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It's standard practice to factory restore an Android device before flipping it on eBay or Craigslist, but the amount of recoverable data you leave behind might shock you. Those nude selfies that were only intended for your special friend? They're on there, and so is a wealth of other personal information that security firm Avast claims can be "easily retrieved" from used smartphones sold online. Avast isn't talking out of its backside, either. The security outfit proved its point by analyzing 20 used Android smartphones whose previous owners had successfully completed a factory reset or "delete all" operation. Despite the safety precaution, Avast was able to extract a dizzying amount of information....
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Believe it or not, malware for Android exists, and the best way to avoid it is by only downloading apps from trusted sources, such as Google Play. That said, you're still not immune to threats, and according to security firm Avast, makers of self-titled antivirus software, the newest threat to the Android platform is a night vision camera app it found on Google Play. "We’ve already blogged about plenty of threats that sneak onto your device from trusted sources, but here we have a really fresh one, one that is still undetected by other security vendors. An Application called Cámara Visión Nocturna (package name: com.loriapps.nightcamera.apk), which is still available in the...
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Looking for a solid and feature rich FTP client? FileZilla is one of the better ones out there, but surfer beware, malware writers have taken notice of the popular program and have decided to prey on individuals who aren't super diligent with their downloading habits. In other words, be real careful when downloading the FileZilla FTP client because there are fake copies making the rounds that are coded to steal your FTP login credentials. Security outfit Avast says it's noticed an increase presence of malware infested FileZilla FTP clients, most often affecting versions 3.5.3 and 3.7.3 (the latter of which is the most current version). Infected copies come with a malicious algorithm coded in...
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The typical smartphone contains a wealth of information, including contacts, photos, text messages, and more. They also serve as portals to cloud services, so you can imagine how stressful it would be to misplace one of these devices. Plus, they're expensive to replace. Be that as it may, security outfit Avast claims consumers living in the United States are the most likely to lose a smartphone. That little tidbit is based on a survey of 167,904 customers worldwide. After figuring what which nation is the most careless with their digital devices, Avast then set out to see who is affected most by a lost or stolen smartphone. Here's where things get interesting. According to Avast, men are more...
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Avast, makers of the popular free antivirus software of the same name, today announced that it has acquired Secure.me, a privacy protection company that's mostly focused on social network security and helping users to keep sensitive information private. Secure.me's Facebook security app, which uses sophisticated algorithms to analyze and alert Facebook users to actions that could harm their privacy, security, and reputation, is actually the most popular of its kind on the world's largest social networking site, making it an attractive target for Avast. "The acquisition reinforces AVAST's position as a worldwide leader in security,” said AVAST Chief Executive Officer Vincent Steckler. "By...
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There have been countless polls that have tried to predict who is ahead in the Presidential race, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, but AVAST Software thinks it has them all beat. Yes, that AVAST Software, the same one that makes security software, including a popular free antivirus program named after itself. What's AVAST Software's play here? Plain and simple, the security vendor, which is headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, claims its poll had less to do with politics than its desire to test its ability to gather opinions from a large sample size in a short period of time. "Our reasons for doing the survey weren't political in nature," said Vince Steckler, AVAST Software CEO. "We usually use...
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Security outfit Avast Software has partnered with Facebook to share its Virus Lab data with the social networking service. In doing so, Facebook now has access to Avast's real-time cloud database, which it will use to block malware from being shared unwittingly by its users. When you click on a link within Facebook, the URL checked in the cloud to determine whether its safe or infected, and if it's found to be compromised, a warning message will appear. "Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our users and their data. Beginning today, Facebook will be able to leverage Avast's feed of malicious URLs to augment our existing site integrity systems and those in our community will be able...
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Anyone who's been playing with PCs for awhile has probably heard of AVAST Software, makers of the self-titled and popular free antivirus software heralding from the Czech Republic. AVAST is generally considered one of the 'good guys' in the fight against malware, and given the company's track record, it's no surprise that it's avast! Free Antivirus collected yet another VB100 award from Virus Bulletin, an independent testing laboratory that holds AV applications accountable to their claims. The freebie security software scored a perfect 100 percent in Virus Bulletin's 'Reactive and Proactive' (RAP) malware sample, and did so without recording any annoying false positives. "Detection rates were...
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Security software maker Avast sike'd out scores of Steam users over the weekend when its antivirus program identified the gaming platform as being infected with a Trojan virus. Gamers flocked to Steam's forums in the wee hours of the morning last night trying to figure if the warning was a false positive, which is exactly what it turned out to be. "There was a very brief false positive issue which was corrected in 1.5 hours," a spokesperson for Avast told The Register. False positives are an annoying, albeit largely necessary side-effect of keeping malware at bay. Typically, however, virus scanners are pretty good about not identifying safe and popular programs like Steam as potential viruses,...
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If there's one thing none of us want, it's a computer virus. There are plenty of antivirus options available; one of the newest options is Avast Pro Antivirus 6.0 which was recently announced by Globalshareware.com. This new version comes with an improved antivirus and anti-spyware engine. With version 6.0, you'll get real time anti-root kit protection, a mail shield, and a safe zone designed specifically for times where you'll be conducting sensitive transactions such as secure online banking. To help protect you, Avast Pro Antivirus 6.0 uses a sandbox to run potentially dangerous programs in a safe virtual environment. There's also a boot-time scanner that scans your system before the OS is...
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YouTube has been a marvelous success. That's why Google paid 1.65 billion dollars to get their hands on it. Well, Google has decided to try to identify copyrighted material on their shiny new toy, and in a very serious way: A technology designed to detect copyright material could give YouTube a needed dose of legal legitimacy and calm any concerns Google Inc. has about spending $1.65 billion on the Internet video site. But that same technology could hurt YouTube's edgy appeal. While YouTube is known as the place to find almost any kind of video clip, recent agreements with high-profile content creators require YouTube to deploy an audio-signature technology that can spot a low-quality copy...
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