Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched? Guess what — every time you pull out your smartphone or tablet and surf the internet, you are. The websites you visit, the items you browse and buy, the videos you stream, and where you were located when you did it. All of this paints a picture of who you are, what you do, and what interests you — all vital information to advertisers and marketers.
Blog post and analysis by Vojtech Bocek and Nikolaos Chrysaidos
When you get a brand new phone, you expect it to be clean from any malware and adware. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. The Avast Threat Labs has found adware pre-i…
Cybercriminals have caught on. Our mobile devices are where it’s at. Personal info, bank accounts, passwords, important contacts — all this data is on our phones. And data today is more valuable than gold, which makes smartphones the new motherload. Realizing “there’s gold in them thar cells!” the cyber-underground targeted devices more than ever over the past year.
Imagine exploring around in the awe-inspiring Roman Colosseum, drinking up its ancient history while someone sneaks your wallet out of your pocket. Or standing atop the Eiffel Tower, taking in the grandest view in the world as someone silently swipes your passport and starts running around Paris under your name. Life-enriching experiences, particularly related to travel, are dashed against the rocks the moment you discover you’ve been victimized. To fully enjoy your travel adventures, you have to first take the target off your back. Here’s how:
Ransomware attacks have become one the top security threats facing individuals and corporations alike. Although most of these attacks are still aimed at PCs, another popular target has emerged: Android-based mobile devices. According to ransomware experts here at Avast, Android ransomware saw an increase in Q3’17 YoY of 72% and an even higher increase in Q4’17 YoY of 116%, as several high-profile attacks made the rounds.
In parts 1 and 2, we unveiled the top draining apps on Android across the board: the ones that ruin your battery life, hog up your storage or monthly data volume, and the ones that do it all at once. By using data anonymously collected from millions of…
Does your smartphone need an antivirus app? The answer is absolutely yes, and the truth of the matter is that there are a multitude from which to choose. As an aid to consumers, independent testing lab AV-Comparatives periodically assesses security software to evaluate its effectiveness. The lab did such a study recently on Android antivirus products and learned that over half of those tested were “risky,” meaning they were at best buggy and at worst deceptive. Avast, however, received a perfect score of 100% malware detection.
In January, independent IT-security institute AV-TEST conducted a study of twenty mobile security products for Android. The goal was to test the three main pillars of a strong mobile security solution — malware detection, false positive prevention, and performance impact. Avast Mobile Security was evaluated in the study and aced all categories.
In November 2017, we detected a strain of malware known as JSMiner in Google Play. The Monero cryptomining capabilities were discovered inside the gaming application Cooee. At the time of discovery, we forecasted a rise in mobile mining malware as atta…
The first indication that internet of things (IoT) devices posed a real security threat came in October 2016 when a botnet — made up of devices such as security cameras infected with Mirai malware — attacked Dyn, a provider of DNS services.The attack came in the form of a DDoS (distributed denial of service) assault on Dyn’s servers. By firing off multiple requests every second, the attack took down websites all over the USA and Europe, as DNS servers were overrun with requests from millions of infected devices.