Category Archives: Consumer Alerts

The Silver Lining: How To Empower Your Child to Use Technology Responsibly

As digital immigrants we spend a lot of time trying to understand the dangers of technology. We make it our priority to keep our future generations—and inherent digital natives—safe. We tell them not to say anything online that they wouldn’t say in person, we delete inappropriate applications from their smartphones, and we work hard to Read more…

What Master Key? – Android Signature Bypass Vulnerability

Recently, a vulnerability in Android package signature verification was announced by Jeff Forristal, CTO of Bluebox Security. Jeff plans on revealing details at the upcoming BlackHat Briefings at the end of this month. Though he has not released any details on his findings beyond the initial blog post more information is becoming available on how Read more…

Internet Browser Cookies: Nothing Like Those Delicious Things Grandma Used To Make

Imagine you’re surfing the web in search of a new pair of shoes on Zappos.com. You browse the website, look over a number of tennis shoes in your size. If you already have an account, you log in and save a couple of your favorites to a wish list. Eventually, you leave the site to Read more…

Does Kik Messenger Pose a Danger to Your Kids?

With more than 50 million users, and reportedly growing by 20,000 everyday, Kik has become one of the most popular messaging apps on the market. It is widely used as a messaging portal between those who want to connect privately off of other social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). But more importantly, it has become Read more…

How the Proliferation of Mobile Devices is Impacting Consumer Security

Mobile technology is the new frontier for fraudsters. Most of us don’t protect our smartphones or tablets—and the private information they contain—anywhere near as well as we do our wallets and PCs (even though most us would rather lose our wallets vs. our smartphones). Even the simple safeguard of a four-digit password is too much Read more…

Shady practices of free download servers

Many internet users employ simple tricks when they want to find some interesting software or computer game. They type the desired program’s name into the search bar, add the word “download” and hit enter. In most cases, the first few results from the search engine usually belong to free download servers. I recently followed some […]

Security tips from AVAST Forum Evangelists

The AVAST forum is one of our largest and most active communities, with more than 300,000 users. The most active people on the forum are called Evangelists. They spend a great deal of their free time answering user questions and helping to sort out issues of all kinds. You can meet them on the AVAST […]

The 4 sneakiest Facebook scams

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Millions of people use social networks like Facebook and Twitter every day to share photos, comments, and ideas with their friends and followers. These popular platforms have become magnets for cybercrooks and are used to spread different types of scams. Hackers take advantage of the easy accessibility of data we put online to manipulate or […]

Fake Flash Player installer spreads via Twitter and Facebook

Recently we identified a threat which uses Twitter and Facebook to spread. The origin of the infection begins by clicking malicious tweets or Facebook posts. After clicking a tweet similar to the figure below, the user is redirected to a webpage, which asks to download and install Adobe Flash Player. The translation of the marked […]

avast! Free Antivirus is the best deal for the Real World

In the “real world” of monthly bills and rising expenses, a decision about antivirus protection often comes down to the best protection for the money – and that’s where avast! Free Antivirus wins out over the rest. In the May 2013 Real-World Protection Test by AV-Comparatives, avast! Free Antivirus was up against 19 paid-for internet […]