Search Results for: avast

It seems malware is everywhere these days, and many a user falls prey to it through emails, downloaded files and malicious websites. One trick is to name a bad file after a popular existing app -- Flash is a top target for this sort of thing.

The FileZilla FTP Client seems to be the latest target in this type of attack. Security researchers at Avast discovered this happening with versions 3.7.3 and 3.5.3 of the software. “We have noticed an increased presence of these malware versions of famous open source FTP clients”, the firm announces.

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Independent testing lab AV-Test has revealed its list of the best security solutions for Windows 8.1, according to the company’s November/December 2013 tests.

Six suites were locked at top of the list for protection with maximum 100 percent scores in both months: F-Secure Internet Security 2014, Norton Internet Security 2014, Bitdefender Internet Security 2014, Avira Internet Security 2014 and -- after topping the AV-Comparatives table last month -- Kaspersky Internet Security 2014.

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Independent testing organization AV-Comparatives has released its Anti-Virus Comparative Summary Report 2013.

This rounds up the results of the company's tests carried out over the past year on 22 consumer antivirus and internet security products.

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Czech security developer AVG has launched AVG AntiVirus for Mac Free Edition 14.0, its first major foray into the increasingly crowded Mac anti-malware market. The new release comes with the promise of "triple protection" against not just Mac malware, but Windows and Android malware too.

The release is a no-frills affair, with real-time protection, a simple on-demand file scanner and automatic updates the sum of the application’s whole.

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Security software testing lab AV Comparatives has released its August-November 2013 "real-world" protection report, which assesses the accuracy of leading antivirus tools when confronted by a range of malicious files and websites.

Topping the tables this time was Kaspersky Internet Security 2014, with the package achieving a detection rate of 99.9 percent without blocking a single legitimate domain or file.

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If you’re always being asked to troubleshoot other people’s PCs then you’ll know that it can be, well, a very lengthy process. Just browsing various Control Panel and other applets to identify the problem can take quite some time, and that’s before you begin downloading your favorite tools to try and deal with it.

There is an easier way, though, and it’s called d7. The program doesn’t claim to troubleshoot problems itself -- you’ll still need plenty of Windows knowledge and experience -- but it does provide an array of powerful tools which will make your life considerably easier.

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For those in the States, the mad dash to compliance is unquestionably on. After years of taking a "wait and see" approach to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations surrounding medical office technology, healthcare providers (and related covered entities) are scrambling to get their systems and procedures in order. Big Brother has officially set a September 23, 2013 deadline for most new rules that put into place heightened protocols for how patient information (PI) is shared as well as how notifications about breaches need to be handled, among other things.

Naturally, a lot of my consulting clients in the healthcare industry are reaching out for professional help on how to get their IT systems in line as these deadlines approach. One of the biggest facets of the new HIPAA laws, which affects companies like mine that provide hands-on IT consulting, is that for the first time ever we are being considered "covered entities" in the same boat as the healthcare outlets themselves.

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It's become almost unthinkable to use a Windows PC without some form of protection and that’s put the emphasis on other systems when it comes to security. Last week independent testing organization AV-Comparatives released its report on Mac security and now it's Android’s turn.

With mobile devices it's important to guard not just against hackers but against the loss of the device itself. Smartphones are an attractive target for thieves and security software needs to make the data on them difficult to access for the thief but still easy to get to for the owner. Most of the products tested offer some form of anti-theft measure, with either the ability to lock the phone remotely or to track it.

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Qihu 360 Software may not make too many headlines in the security world, but the company is huge in its native China, claiming an impressive 450,000,000 users in total. (To put that in perspective, even a big name like AVG only claims around a third of that number.)

It seems that Qihu has ambitions to expand further, though, this year finally releasing its free 360 Internet Security 2013 -- an antivirus product, despite the suite-type name -- in an English language version. Is it worth your time? We took a quick look.

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Playing with root-friendly apps was one of my favorite activities whilst being an Android user. There was something that I can't quite put my finger on -- be it the empowering feeling that I got or the endless possibilities that were available at my disposal -- that attracted me towards having elevated privileges on the green droid operating system.

I would run my Android smartphone with an overclocked processor (and, even GPU) -- which I enjoyed, as it made everything faster -- but, through root, also gained access to some other features, such as the ability to change color profiles, access system-level files and create and restore backups. These are all things that one can't do when running an untouched version of Android. Undeniably, as you can see, rooting has its perks.

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Results of independent tests by AV-Comparatives looking at the real world protection offered by leading packages show that competition is as fierce as ever.

The tests use 569 real-world malicious URLs. 138 of these are blocked by a Windows 7 system with all its patches up to date, leaving 431 to be intercepted by security software. The tests use MS Security Essentials as a baseline providing a 95.4 percent level of protection. You can see the full results on an interactive chart but it’ll come as no surprise that it's all pretty close.

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Sandboxie 4.02 is the latest edition of the powerful shareware sandbox, which allows you to run programs in an isolated environment where they’re unable to affect your main system.

The new build enhances security by dropping the use of unofficial kernel hooks. Programs running under Sandboxie now have no permissions and can’t access or manipulate any objects out of their own memory space.

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Piriform has released CCleaner 4.00 and CCleaner Portable 4.00, major new release of its popular free cleaning tool for Windows users. Version 4.0 includes two new tools, but for the first time restricts one of these to paid-for users with Pro licenses only.

Version 4.0 also debuts a new program icon and tweaked user interface, added support for cleaning additional programs and the usual raft of performance and stability tweaks, including unspecified improvements to the program’s internal architecture for better performance.

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We’re now well in to the new year, with the February software offers live through the Downloadcrew Software Store.

You may have picked up a brand new Windows 8 computer during the festive season. If so, the first thing you’ll want to do is pick up a security suite to keep your system secure. The Downloadcrew Software Store is packed full of security offers from Bitdefender, AVG, Kaspersky, Avira and other brands.

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Managing the software on your PC can sometimes feel like a full-time job, as you have to find the best applications, download and install each one, then do your best to keep them up-to-date.

If you have better things to do with your time, though, you could just install Milouz Market, which can manage a lot of this almost entirely automatically.

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