Tag Archives: Mobile Security

BYOD increases the need for Anti-Theft protection

smartphone and tablet

The convenience of BYOD can go down the drain if the employee loses their device. Protect it with Avast Anti-Theft.

Small business owners embrace the idea of employees supplying their own computers, smartphones, and tablets in the workplace. But the savings and convenience can go down the drain if the employee falls prey to a phishing scam and downloads malware or loses their device. Protecting mobile devices has become increasingly more important as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) grows in popularity.

Technical security measures to protect information are of obvious importance. However, many security incidents relate to the theft or loss of equipment.

We can write multiple blog posts about BYOD policies and educating your employees about the latest threats and tricks that cybercrooks play (spearphishing, for example), which is all extremely important, but if you simply lose your device, then all bets are off anyway. You can avoid headaches in the case of misplaced or stolen devices by having a way to remotely locate the missing device and wiping the data away if it ends up in the wrong hands.

Avast Anti-Theft allows users to log on to their desktop account or use a friend’s phone to remotely locate their device, lock it, activate the remote siren, or wipe its data clean.

Learn 5 ways to thwart the thief who stole your Android.

Business owners also need to consider what to do about company data on an employee’s personal device when they are terminated or leave the company. Some companies have resorted to wiping personal devices clean of all data, but that includes contacts, family photos, apps and music, which can lead to unpleasant lawsuits or complaints from former employees. Mobile device management systems (MDMs) are available, but could be overkill for very small businesses.

If you only have a few employees, and do not require a full-blown MDM, then Install Avast Anti-Theft for free from the Google Play store to protect your own devices and those of your employees.

 

A Google search is enough to find your lost or stolen mobile phone

google maps

As much as you look for it you can’t find it. It is not on the table where you usually put it, it is not charging… you start fearing, where is it? Has someone stolen it? Have you lost it? Relax, now Google has the answer to your questions!

A simple search in Google is enough to know where your smartphone is (1m give or take). Avoid uncomfortable situations thanks to the new tool provided by Google, ‘Find my phone’.

google

If you want Google to find your Android device you will have to set it into English. For now this tool is only available in this language.

Then you just have to type these three magic words ‘Find my phone’. Google will give you a map with the location of your phone with an accuracy which may vary a few meters, as the service warns.

In addition, Google goes a step further and offers several features that users can use depending on their Android device’s location. If you are close to it but still can’t find it, the tools allows you to making it ring, even if it is in silence.

option google

However, if Google pinpoints your smartphone far away from you (because you’ve lost it or it has been stolen), you can use the “Block” option which will block the device and restore all the passwords, or the “Delete” option to delete all the data stored in your device.

These are the same features as the ones in ‘Android Device Manager’. The main innovation of ‘Find my phone’ is that you can know the location of your ‘smartphone’ through Google that now more than ever, has the answers to everything.

In addition to knowing where is your phone these kind of tools can be also used for parental control, allowing parents to know the location of their children thanks to the location of their ‘smartphone’.

To locate your phone with Google’s tracker ‘Find my phone’ or Android Device Manager ‘app’, the Android phone must be on and with the GPS activated. Or connected to a mobile or WiFi network that allow Google to pinpoint, more or less, the location of your phone.

Locate your phone with Panda Mobile Security

If you lose your phone or it gets stolen you can retrieve it with Panda’s Mobile Security geolocation system and anti-theft, our antivirus for Android.

You will be able to track and visualize on a map your Tablet or phone, also block and delete all your data remotely. Prevents others from accessing your most sensitive information.

The post A Google search is enough to find your lost or stolen mobile phone appeared first on MediaCenter Panda Security.

Avast Mobile Security is the #1 choice for Android users

The most popular mobile security product in the world is Avast Mobile Security.

In their annual IT Security Survey, AV – Comparatives asked, Which mobile anti-malware security solution do you primarily use on your smartphone?

Avast took 1st or 2nd place on four continents: Europe, North America, Asia, and South/Central America.

 Avast Mobile Security is #1 Android protection.

Don’t get burned! Protect your Android with Avast Mobile Security.

 

How great is the risk of infection on an Android smartphone?

The risk of your Android smartphone becoming infected depends on several factors. In the US and Europe most people use official stores such as Google Play for installing apps. The risk is much lower than in many Asian countries, especially China, where app stores are not subject to stricter controls. Because of these unofficial app stores, along with numerous rooted phones, the chance of installing a dangerous app is highly increased.

In Asia, the smartphone is often used as an alternative to the PC. People frequently use it for online banking which make them vulnerable to Zeus Trojan malware. Zeus is commonly delivered via a link or an attachment in a phishing message or through a text message via WhatsApp, SMS, or Twitter. This threat will similarly increase in Europe and the US as banking apps get more popular.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

The Avast Virus Lab has more than one million samples of mobile malware in its database, and reports that 2,850 new mobile threats are created every day by hackers. The threat situation can change quickly and dramatically so it is best to use preventative protection and install security software on your smartphone. At this point though, protecting important data in the event that your phone is lost or stolen is more critical than malware protection.

The AV-Comparatives survey says that Android users in North America protect their phones more than anywhere else in the world with 31 percent of respondents reporting they have protection. South America, Asia, and Europe are much lower at 17 percent.

Protect your Android smartphone and tablet with Avast Mobile Security and Avast Anti-Theft: Free from the Google Play store.

 

Second Crypto Bug in Networking Library Could Affect 25,000 Apps

A few weeks after the developers of the AFNetworking library that’s popular among iOS and OS X app developers patched a serious bug in the library that enabled man-in-the-middle attacks, another, similar flaw has surfaced. The new vulnerability is related to how the AFNetworking library handles domain name validation for certificates. As it turns out, the library […]

Amazon-Gift: the latest virus in WhatsApp

whatsapp virus

We are always saying that WhatsApp is the favorite platform for cybercriminals to play around. And if we add the name of a giant like Amazon, the scam is bound to be a success.

The Trojan known as Amazon-Gift tell users through a WhatsApp message that both companies have joined and they are offering a gift-card. And if the user wants to obtain the check he must click on a link.

According to Tecnoexplora, this hoax is expanding through Asia and it won’t be long until it reaches the rest of the world.

But cybercriminals have gone a little further, urging users to click quickly if they want to be one of the lucky customers to win the prize as there are only 18.000 gift cards available.

The prize is none other than a Trojan that will infect your mobile phone and add it to a network from which other cyber-attacks will be launched.

So, now you know if someone sends you an Amazon-Gift forget it and don’t click on the link!

The post Amazon-Gift: the latest virus in WhatsApp appeared first on MediaCenter Panda Security.

AirDroid Patches Web App Hijacking Vulnerability

Researchers at Bishop Fox disclose details on a patched authentication vulnerability in the AirDroid web application that could give attackers remote control over Android devices.