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SPF 50 protection for your tech this summer

June 22, 2016 007admin Leave a comment

Make traveling this summer a cool breeze by preparing your tech gadgets for the trip. A few actions prior to leaving will ensure you can enjoy the hard earned vacation.

If your carry-on luggage is like mine, you have a lot of thing that need connecting to the internet. Between my wife, son and myself it is not unusual for us to carry 3 laptops, 3 phones, an iPad and a gaming tablet – and that doesn’t even include our wearables! That’s at least 8 devices I need to think about charging and that’s also the first thing I think about when booking a hotel. I look for those magic words, “unlimited free WiFi”.

Having a safe vacation isn’t just about going online safely but it’s also about securing your finances and your family’s digital life. And it doesn’t start when you arrive. See below for my safety tips from start to finish:

Before you go…

If you are traveling abroad be sure to let your bank and credit card company know, they look for fraudulent transactions and if your card is used in a different country then it may get blocked until you confirm its actually you. Avoid this with a proactive phone call before you go.

If you are bringing a laptop, consider leaving some data at home by removing sensitive documents. In the event someone steals your laptop, then that’s all they get. This helps safeguard your identity. Be sure to back-up your data before you leave for the airport.

Secure your mobile devices and laptops with strong passwords and if you have not already set up anti-theft software on your smartphone, then download it and register. AVG AntiVirus for Android has this feature.

You can avoid running up significant cell phone bills by disabling data roaming. If you don’t want to disable it completely then at least go through your apps and disable it for the non-critical ones. Games and parking apps don’t need to update themselves when you are on the beach!

Be cautious not to advertise the fact that you’re away from home by posting your minute-by-minute location on social media sites. You can switch off location services that might automatically check you in somewhere exotic.

If you are going to use public wifi, then consider installing a personal VPN product on the devices that you are going to connect. HMA’s VPN products can be installed several devices with a single subscription and they are part of the AVG family of security and privacy apps.

Update your security software and applications, this will ensure the latest security patches are installed and reduce the risk of you getting a malware infection. This is more important when traveling as you may not know which sites are reputable when you land in a foreign

Once you’re there…

The minute the plane lands, the mad rush to switch on the phone begins. What did you miss while flying? Probably not much. Airport, coffee shops and hotels are the destinations of choice for those needing a vital connection. How do I stay safe on public WiFi?

The first thing to remember may seem obvious but many people don’t think of it. That’s to take a look behind you. Yes, that person behind you on the plane or in the coffee shop has direct visibility of your screen and if you log-in or make a transaction, they may well be watching.

When the list of Public WiFi networks is displayed don’t trust them without asking. Make sure you connect to an official one rather than a fake one that a cyber-criminal may have set up in order to trick you. If in doubt, ask the manager at the shop.

Use a VPN when connected. This encrypts the connection in case any snoopers are watching the data running on a public network and they won’t be able to see what you are doing. Tools to snoop are readily available and easy to use making this a real threat.

When possible, leave transactions to the privacy of your hotel room or if I can wait until you get home – that’s the best option. Booking tickets is one task that will not wait, so use a credit card rather than a debit card. Credit cards have limits and do not give someone access your bank account.

And possibly the best tip of all – disconnect and enjoy your vacation without the interruptions of technology! Last year, this was forced upon me when we found that the national park we stayed in had no cell service and the nearest WiFi was 50 miles away. It was frustrating to start with, but great once we got used to it.

Receive BIG savings this summer when you download HMA’s VPN for a limited time only.

AVG

Cleaning Up Your Online Identity

April 27, 2016 007admin Leave a comment

Spring is here! Out with the old and in with the new – a new opportunity to put winter clothes away .Why not clean up your digital life as well?

In my previous blog, I talked about cleaning up your cell phone. How about cleaning up your online identity? It’s an important piece of your digital life. Here are 5 steps to scrubbing your online identity:

Google Yourself – You are your own personal brand image. So what are people saying about you and what have you said that might be public? Google yourself to find out where you’re mentioned and what images have been tagged with your name. Then you can work to clean up what you find.
Delete old email accounts – Are your friends receiving weird emails from you? Sometimes the source is that old email address you used a dozen years ago and never check now. Your contacts are still in the account and vulnerable to hackers and the password you used back then is probably not as strong as it should be. Deleting old email accounts stops hackers from abusing your identity to attack your friends and family.
Review old social media posts – Determine if what you posted when you were 18 is still appropriate for you today and consider what an employer or even your kids might think when they see them. And it’s not just about you, if there are pictures of friends that may have been funny at the time, consider taking them offline as well.
Strengthen passwords – Use secure passwords to guard yourself against hackers and other vulnerabilities. There are free tools like Dashlane that help you manage your passwords and guide you to make them stronger. Use different passwords on sites as you never know when your favorite e-retailer could get compromised and you don’t want your password making your whole digital life vulnerable. For an added layer of protection, you should also turn on two –factor authentication so your smartphone can identify you with your fingerprint or with face recognition.
Scrub your history – your surfing history that is. Safeguard your personal information and your location online with a VPN (virtual private network). VPN protects your data from snooping by encrypting it and it also stops snoopers on public WiFi networks from grabbing your data. A VPN will also hide your location preventing websites you visit from targeting with unwanted ads. You can download a free one from HMA! here.
Check privacy settings – Now that the past is cleaned up, make sure your future posts are in check by managing the privacy settings across your social media platforms and online accounts. There may have been changes to the settings and privacy policies in recent product updates, so ensure you have the level of privacy protection that matches the level of your online activity. Go and review the settings today.

Even though your online identity is squeaky clean, don’t wait until next spring to do a digital clean up.

To learn more about me and receive the latest news from AVG:

Follow me on Twitter @TonyatAVG

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AVG

Four Quick Windows 10 Privacy Fixes

August 7, 2015 007admin Leave a comment

If you’re upgrading from a previous version of Windows or buying a new Windows 10 device (PC, laptop or tablet), then you’ll want to be aware of a few privacy issues surrounding some of the new Windows 10 features.

These four quick tips can help you rest easy knowing you’ve got more control over your data.

Disable Personalised Ads

In order to serve you more appropriate ads, Windows 10 tracks some of your behavior so that they can better understand your likes and dislikes.

If you don’t want this feature, you can visit this link https://choice.microsoft.com/en-gb/opt-out on your Windows machine to disable Personalised Ads in your Windows Edge browser and wherever they use your Microsoft Account. This will prevent Windows from showing personalised ads and collecting your data across multiple devices.

Disable Advertiser ID

To prevent third parties from advertising and collecting your data gathered within Windows from Apps you can disable the Advertiser ID.

To do this go to ‘Start menu’, open ‘Settings’, choose the ‘Privacy’ option, then select the ‘General’ tab and turn off the 1st option at the top of the list.

Disable Wi-Fi Sense

Windows 10 Wi-Fi Sense essentially wants to help you maintain online connectivity on the go, and help you use less mobile data if you’re on a mobile device.

It does this by crowdsourcing networks with other Windows users. It looks for open networks (unsecured or password free networks) and scans your contacts (Outlook Contacts, Skype Contacts and Facebook friends) networks and lets you share Wi-Fi . I

This has some great advantages like not having worry about managing network access, but it does present some issues:

People you barely know could connect to your Wi-Fi network.
Any questionable activity on your Wi-Fi internet connection could result in you taking responsibility. This means that you have to trust that people accessing and using your connection are doing the right thing.
Your Internet connection could suffer significant slowdowns and increased data usage.
Open Wi-Fi networks are insecure, and some are setup specifically for nefarious purposes – a hacker can intercept data via packet sniffing or use a man-in-the-middle attack. You might not know if you’ve connected to one automatically and as such are at risk.

If you want to disable the Wi-Fi Sense sharing option then open the Start menu > Settings, Choose the ‘Network & Internet’ option Then click ‘Manage Wi-Fi settings’, and then disable all the options on this page.

Disable location services

If you don’t like the idea of Windows 10 or its apps tracking your movement, then you’ll want to disable location tracking. Open the Start menu, click Settings and choose the ‘Privacy’ option, then select the ‘Location’ tab

You can disable the location services globally or you choose which apps can track location.

We’ve only covered the basics here, but there are additional options available in the Windows 10 privacy settings that you might want to take a look at and customise further, especially if you’re concerned about your privacy.

To go that extra mile and ensure your complete privacy while online, then you can use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service like hidemyass.com which encrypts your data.

If you would like to chat more about privacy, then please start a conversation with us on Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to hear from you and any tips you might like to share.

AVG

Help protect your family with AVGâ€™s new VPN from Privax

May 20, 2015 007admin Leave a comment

As a father of three, I understand the difficulty of raising children in an increasingly online world. This first-hand experience made it even more pleasing to stand in the offices of AVG’s newest acquisition, a privacy and protection technology company called Privax, and to welcome all their employees officially to AVG.

Privax is behind a fantastic service called HMA! Pro which is a virtual private network (VPN) product that allows consumers to connect their mobile and desktop devices to the Internet securely and privately. It’s a great tool to ensure that personal data remains just that – personal data. VPNs give people more control over what information about themselves they are comfortable sharing and what they would prefer to keep to themselves when communicating, purchasing or searching online.

AVG understands that you are concerned about your privacy and this acquisition is part of our continued commitment to offering the best protection and privacy products available. It’s our goal to give you peace of mind when you go online on your mobile as well as your desktop devices. You’ve told us that you value choice when managing your own privacy settings, and for those with families, this is even more important as you look to protect your children online.

Research we carried out earlier this year with the Mobile Ecosystem Forum showed that 49% of people surveyed in 10 countries said trust prevented them from downloading or buying online, or using some or all apps from their mobile device. We also found that 72% were not happy sharing personal data with apps – compared with 65% last year.

Therefore, at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, our CEO, Gary Kovacs, made a public commitment to provide smart tools to help our customers reassert their privacy. This acquisition takes us one step further towards fulfilling this promise.

Video

Gary Kovacs Keynote at MWC 2015

Customers can already use our existing privacy services including AVG PrivacyFix and the Do Not Track feature of our secure search. Privax’s HMA! Pro will give you another option by helping you enjoy your favorite online activities in a safe and private environment that you can tailor to your personal sharing preferences and without compromising your privacy.

AVG

AVG Technologies ring the opening bell at NYSE

May 13, 2015 007admin Leave a comment

Following investor briefings this week in New York and the recent acquisition announcement of UK based Privax Ltd., makers of the popular ‘HMA! Pro VPN’, it has been a busy time at AVG.

This is the second time that the AVG executive team has had the privilege of ringing the opening bell, doing so in 2012 when it first listed on the exchange. Now with 200 million active users, and over half of them on mobile devices, AVG is once again celebrating.

The NYSE was founded in 1817 and the original signal to open and close the market was a gavel, but during the late 1800’s this changed to a gong. And then in 1903 the gong was switched to the bell format seen today.

Famous NYSE bell ringers have included Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees, Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan and even fictional characters such as Micky Mouse and Darth Vader.

Standing on the NYSE podium and pushing the button that signals the bells to ring is seen by many as a great honor and a lifetime achievement. We couldn’t be more proud of our executive team at AVG for their hard work and tireless dedication for this well deserved recognition.

AVG

Four tips for safer Wi-Fi surfing

May 13, 2015 007admin Leave a comment

Here’s what you can do to stay protected while hopping from hotspot to hotspot—or at home.

Make sure you’re connected to a real network

You may never have wondered if the coffee houses you walk into really have a network. After all, if your computer’s found a network, they must have one, right? Think again. Hackers can easily create a fake hotspot imitating the name of your favorite coffee house, library or other establishment. Connect to one of these fake hotspots, and then everything you do online would be going through them.

Always confirm the name of the network with the owners before you connect to it.

Use HTTPS encryption

What a mouthful, right? But it’s really quite simple. Most Internet URLs (the addresses or links that you use to navigate the web) start with the four letters http. This is short for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Well, some web sites offer to connect with a secure, encrypted version of this protocol, called HTTP Secure (or HTTPS for short). Whenever you connect with a website via this secure method, your data to and from it are encrypted so no one else on the same network can see it.

Most important websites like Google, Facebook and more support HTTPS automatically, but keep an eye out for s in the address, and add it if it doesn’t appear. Some browsers have extensions like HTTPS Everywhere that make sure your browser is always seeking the secure connection.

This kind of encryption only works for what happens in your browser. If you have other applications that connect to the Internet, like a mail client such as Outlook or Apple Mail, you’ll need to make sure they have some form of encryption and that its settings are on.

Adjust your settings for maximum protection

Free Wi-Fi hotspots are high in demand, so you’ll rarely be the only one connected to a network. That means others can reach out through the network and connect to your device if you haven’t changed your sharing and network discovery settings (network discovery lets others find you).

Here’s how you do it:

On Windows: open the start menu (or press the windows key) and type “Manage advanced sharing settings”, then type enter. Make sure that any sharing options are switched off, and that network discovery is also off. Some versions of Windows automatically change these settings for you when you specify you are on a public network vs a home or work one.

On a Mac: Open System Preferences and choose Sharing. Make sure all the boxes are unchecked. Head back to the main System Preferences menu, select Security & Privacy and then the Firewall tab. In the Firewall Options, make sure that stealth mode is checked.

Use a clean browser

You probably have a favorite browser that you use for everything you do online—and that’s exactly why you should use a “clean browser”. Your usual browser is probably set up to give you a lot of handy features like remembering your passwords and keeping cookies from your favorite websites to load them with your personal settings faster. This is all sensitive information worth stealing. A clean browser knows none of that, so there is nothing there for anyone on the same network to steal.

Use a VPN

Virtual Private Networks (VPN) make sure that anything coming in or out of your device is wrapped in strong encryption—not just your browser or email client. This is the safest method of connecting to the Internet when in public. Traditionally used by businesses and governments, VPNs have become affordable for individuals concerned with their security and privacy.

Even with these precautions, however, you should avoid any sensitive browsing like accessing your online bank accounts or making online purchase with your credit card while in public. If it can wait, you should probably do it at home.

How to secure your home network

If you’re looking to protect your home network from strangers, there are really two main things to keep in mind when setting up your Wi-Fi router:

Make sure you are using WPA2 encryption.
Make sure your password is long.

Our own Michael McKinnon has more on how to protect your network: