Category Archives: Antivirus Vendors

Antivirus Vendors

Panda Security

How to keep your kids away from dangerous websites

When used correctly, the Internet is an amazing learning resource for your children. But just like any other “open” communications platform, there’s a lot of unsuitable content out there.

As a parent, you want your kids to get the most enjoyment and education from their time online. But you also want to limit access to illegal or undesirable content – at least until you are sure they have the skills needed to protect themselves online.

So which sites present a danger to your kids, and what can you do about them?

Social networking sites

Social media has taken the world by storm – and your kids want to get involved too. But there’s a reason that Facebook, Twitter and Instagram insist that their users must be aged at least 14 – there’s a lot of unsavoury content out there.

Despite this age restriction, many kids are lying about their age and signing up anyway. Which means they are opening themselves to unsuitable content or approaches by criminals.

The most effective way to prevent these problems is to simply block access to social network sites. The Panda Gold Protection antivirus allows you to do just this on your family’s computers.

Warez and torrents

Software piracy is a major problem as criminals share games, videos and software online illegally. Downloading these files – sometimes called ‘warez’ – is completely illegal and could see you prosecuted in court.

It is not unusual for these files to be compromised with malware either. Malware that can steal your personal data, or destroy your computer.

It is vitally important that you prevent access to warez sites, as well as those listing torrents – the tool used to download these files. Your

You should seriously consider blocking access to illegal content for the adults in your house as well the children!

Chat and unrestricted message boards

Online communities aimed at kids, like Club Penguin and Minecraft, tend to be very proactive at detecting and blocking adults who attempt to use the platform for grooming and exploitation. Other “open” forums are not so well managed.

Sites like Omegle and ChatRoulette are notorious for problems for instance. Users are connected randomly for text and video chat – so you have no idea who your kids are talking to – or what they might see. And the same is true of virtually any open chat forum.

Again, you should help your kids understand where to find “safe” online communities, and to avoid those that could be dangerous. You can back this up by blocking access to unmoderated sites, or which are simply unsuitable for children.

Managing access isn’t as hard as it sounds

Blocking access to dangerous sites sounds time consuming and difficult – but with the right internet security tool, the process is actually very easy.

Panda Gold Protection gives you a number of topics, and you simply select the list that applies. So if you want to stop kids accessing sites about tobacco and smoking, you apply that list to your account.

These block lists are centrally managed, and updated regularly. So as new sites and services become available, they are blocked automatically. And once you are sure your kids are mature enough, you simply deselect the lists to restore access.

Need to know more? Ask us a question.

The post How to keep your kids away from dangerous websites appeared first on Panda Security Mediacenter.

Panda Security

Cybercrime Reaches New Heights in the Third Quarter

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Cybercrime isn’t slowing down anytime soon. This quarter, cybercriminals were increasingly more ingenious, using innovative technologies and new tools to spread their wares. According to the PandaLabs report, 18 million new malware samples were captured in this quarter alone, an average of 200,000 each day.

The wave of sophisticated attacks used this quarter confirm that Ransomware attacks and the theft of data (that is sold on the black market) are the most-used tactics this quarter. We also witnessed increasing DDoS attacks, interference with the Internet of Things (such as connect cars), along with a new kind of ransomware attacks that are focused on iOs-based mobile devices.

Ransomware and the Evolution of Cybercrime

According to the National Crime Agency of the United Kingdom, cybercrime currently makes up more than 50% of the crimes committed in the UK.

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In addition to the traditional infection techniques via exploits and spam, there are some other extremely effective techniques, specifically directed at businesses. We saw this in September when a group of attackers successfully installed the Crysis ransomware on a French company’s server.

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Cybercriminals struck gold when they started compromising game sites. Millions of people have been victims of these kinds of attacks including users of the pornographic website Brazzers, who suffered a security breach where 800,000 users’ data was stolen.

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PunkeyPOS and PosCardStealer have become the biggest nightmare for Point of Sale terminals in establishments, mainly in the United States, and compromised client credit and debit card data.

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In August, SWIFT released a statement that revealed that many attacks similar to the Bangladesh one are taking place. They did not include exact amount stolen and number of attacked banks in their statement. What is mentioned, however, is that these financial entities did not have adequate security measures in place.

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Lately, the ransomware attacks on iPhones and iPads are increasing. But in contrast to their Windows counterparts, the cybercriminals do not use malware for these attacks. Instead, they use the victim’s AppleID and password (usually obtained through phishing) to ask for a reward from the “Find my IPhone” application.

If you would like to learn more about the biggest data thefts in history (like the recent attacks on Yahoo and Dropbox), stay updated about the latest DDos attacks, learn more about the hackable IoT devices, or stay informed about the cyberwar evolution, please download our quarterly PandaLabs report.

 

Download PandaLabs Report Q3:

International Edition
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Avast

Malware posing as Dual Instance app steals users’ Twitter credentials

Do you have more than one Twitter or WhatsApp account? If you answered yes, do you want to log in to these multiple accounts at the same time? Up until this point, logging in to multiple social media accounts at one time has only been possible by using more than one mobile device. Dual Instance is a technique that allows you to run more than one instance of a mobile application simultaneously. As we know, it never takes malware authors long to catch on to new trends, so cybercriminals have recently taken it upon themselves to create malicious versions of Dual Instance apps.

Panda Security

US presidential debates and cyber security.

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What we’ve learned from the first two debates and what to expect from the last one?

One of the major questions discussed during the 1st presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was about cyber security. We were secretly hoping that questions about cyber safety will be part of the topic list in the 2nd debate too but unfortunately this was not exactly the case.
Discussions around Donald Trump’s recently leaked “locker room talk” recording ended up being a bit more entertaining for the moderators than the cyber future of the free world. However, we hope the cyber security topic will be discussed again in the third and final presidential debate scheduled for later today.

The next president of the United States of America will have to make some hard decisions. See what they are below;

Government and private institutions are under attack!

Both candidates admitted that there is a 21st century war that is happening right now and right here in the USA. Even though that USA is certainly one of the dominating powers in this area, secrets are being stolen from both public and private sectors on a daily basis.

Hundreds of thousands of people and businesses are being affected by cybercrimes every year.

Who is behind it and how to tackle the problem?
According to Hillary Clinton, the threat is coming from organized cyber gangs as well as states. Even though there is no hard proof, there’s been speculation that North Korea, Iran, Russia and China have been behind some of the cyber-attacks executed on US soil. How are these issues going to be dealt with? Stay tuned.

How dangerous are whistle-blowers?

This is the question we will most likely see tonight. Pressuring Ecuador to cut off the internet of Julian Assange is not doing USA any good. Countries such as Russia welcome whistle-blowers. Are whistle-blowers heroes protecting the first amendment or traitors? We would love to hear the thoughts of the next president of the USA.
Being president of the free world is arguably one of the toughest jobs in the world.

Just one thing is sure, the debate later today will be fierce!

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