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Avast at Mobile World Congress 2016

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Avast went to Barcelona to participate in the Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry.

booth-2.jpgThis year we made a few changes and added new apps to show. Our main change was the Avast Mobile Security booth. Last year we were in Hall 5, but this year we were located in the App Planet, Hall 8.1, and we had a bigger booth! It’s a beautiful one, right? šŸ™‚

More than 95,000 people attend the MWC and a lot of them visited our booth to discover our new apps, like Avast WiFi Finder, Avast Passwords and Avast Virtual Mobile Platform.

Avast WiFi Finder helps you connect to a widespread collection of reliable, fast, safe hotspots which are crowd-sourced by people just like you – all around the world, so you can save on monthly bills and roaming fees.

Avast Passwords helps you create strong, unique passwords for each of your accounts and save and store all your login details in a secure place. Now you don’t need to memorize or write down a bunch of different passwords.

Avast Virtual Mobile Platform lets businesses create a virtual mobile infrastructure (VMI) that streams standard mobile apps to any device. Since apps run on corporate servers, your data can’t be lost or stolen – even if your device is.

Of course, we were not only showing our new apps, everybody who came to our booth was able to see a demo of all our popular apps Avast Mobile Security and Avast SecureLine VPN.

Mac users get first taste of ransomware

“The main threats targeting Mac users are mostly adware, but this new threat shows that the trend may change.”

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For Mac users, hell has finally frozen over. The first case of working ransomware targeting OS X was reported this past weekend.

“This is the first one in the wild that is definitely functional, encrypts your files and seeks a ransom,” said Palo Alto Threat Intelligence Director Ryan Olson in a Reuters interview. The researchers dubbed the ransomware “KeRanger.”

Ransomware has successfully attacked Windows and Android users, usually when a user is tricked into clicking an infected link in an email or an infected ad on a website. The ransomware then locks all the files in the system and demands money for a key that will unlock the files. (another good reason not to click on links in emails.)

Any ransomware that gets onto your device, whether a Mac, PC, or smartphone, is a serious threat. Most people are scared when they see their device has been locked and their data has been encrypted so they pay the ransom,” said Jan Sirmer, a researcher from the Avast Virus Lab. “We generally advise against paying the ransom, because this rewards the malware authors for their work and encourages them to continue spreading ransom, but sometimes it can’t be helped.” 

One of the most recent attacks locked up the servers of the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles. Because their patient records are vital to hospital operation, they opted to pay $17,000 in bitcoin, the preferred digital currency of cybercrooks, to get them back. Law enforcement offices have been victims as well.

The Dirty Dozen tax scams: Identity theft, phone scams and phishing schemes, oh my!

 

old_man_piggy_bank.jpgIt’s that time of the year again – tax season is upon us.

Recently, the Internal Revenue Service wrapped up its annual “Dirty Dozen” list of tax scams. This year, identity theft topped the list, but phone scams and phishing schemes also deserve special mentions. It’s important that taxpayers guard against ploys to steal their personal information, scam them out of money or talk them into engaging in questionable behavior with their taxes. While discussing the topic of tax scams, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said:

“We are working hard to protect taxpayers from identity theft and other scams this filing season. . .Taxpayers have rights and should not be frightened into providing personal information or money to someone over the phone or in an email. We urge taxpayers to help protect themselves from scams — old and new.”

In addition to releasing the “Dirty Dozen” list, the IRS has also renewed a consumer alert for email schemes. This renewal came after seeing an approximate 400 percent surge in phishing and malware incidents so far this tax season.

We encourage taxpayers to review the list in a special section on IRS.gov and be on the lookout for the many different forms of tax scams. Many of these con games peak during filing season as people prepare their tax returns or hire someone to do so.

Taking a closer look at this year’s “Dirty Dozen” scams

Here‘s what you should keep your eyes open for throughout this tax season:

Identity theft: Taxpayers need to watch out for identity theft — especially around tax time. The IRS continues to aggressively pursue the criminals that file fraudulent returns using someone else’s Social Security number. Though the agency is making progress on this front, taxpayers still need to be extremely careful and do everything they can to avoid being victimized.

How to have the safest phone in the world

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Avast SecureLine VPN keeps you safe when connected to an unsecured Wi-Fi

Unsecured networks can expose you to a hacker who can easily read your messages, steal your logins, passwords,  and credit card details.

The danger is that you never know when it could happen, or where, so having a way to secure your device when connected to an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot is the best protection.

How to avoid the dangers of open Wi-Fi

To avoid the potential of a snoop stealing your private information, you basically have two choices: Stop using unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots or make sure you always have a secure connection by using a VPN (virtual private network), like Avast SecureLine VPN.

A VPN sounds extremely techie, and it is, under the hood. Avast mobile security developers created SecureLine to give you a secure and reliable private connection for your data between computer networks over the Internet. Your outgoing and incoming data is encrypted and it travels in its own private “tunnel” and is decrypted at the other end.

When you use Avast SecureLine VPN, everything you do is anonymous. We don’t keep logs of your online activity, and thanks to SecureLine, no one else will either.

Get a 7-day free trial of Avast SecureLine VPN

Avast SecureLine VPN for Android and iOS takes all that tech goodness and puts it in a simple-to-use app. All you do is tap a connect button, and the app does the rest.

Install Avast SecureLine VPN on your iPhone or iPad and try it free for 7 days.

Install Avast SecureLine VPN on your Android smartphone or tablet and try it free for 7 days.

After you install Secureline, click connect and choose a server from 27 locations in 19 countries, or let SecureLine choose the closest one. You can turn the secure connection on and off with one click.

How to have the safest phone in the world

Free Wi-Fi is great. It’s convenient when you are away from your home network and want to connect to the Internet using your mobile phone, and it saves money and data. But there is a dark side. Unsecured networks can expose you to a hacker who can easily read your messages, steal your logins, passwords,  and […]

Hospitals and healthcare providers under cyberattack

The recent ransomware attack on the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles has spooked the healthcare community. Hackers installed *ransomware in the hospital computer system and held patient records hostage while demanding payment. The hospital eventually paid $17,000 to have their files unlocked. Attacks on major insurance and healthcare systems last year including Excellus […]

The Dirty Dozen tax scams: Identity theft, phone scams and phishing schemes, oh my!

It’s that time of the year again – tax season is upon us. Recently, the Internal Revenue Service wrapped up its annual “Dirty Dozen” list of tax scams. This year, identity theft topped the list, but phone scams and phishing schemes also deserve special mentions. It’s important that taxpayers guard against ploys to steal their […]

25 days offline: Iā€™m not insane (yet) ā€“ Part III

Keeping my mind occupied without the  Internet is not that difficult… but you need to learn how to live in this situation.   Day 15. About 10 days to go… I have a lot of time and no worries. You should test this offline vacation idea for yourself. I’m reading Fiódor Dostoiévski much faster than when […]