Tag Archives: Tony Ancombe

AVG equals 100% with no mistakes

AVG’s perfect test score for real world protection translates into an Advanced+ award from AV-Comparatives. You can go about your daily browsing knowing you have award winning protection from AVG.

 

AV-Comparatives have just released the Real-World Test scores for July. One company stands out from the rest with a ‘Perfect Game’, 100% detection with zero false positives, AVG. The term Perfect Game is a baseball reference when a pitcher plays the whole game with none of the opposing team getting to first base. For the soccer fans out there we might refer to this as a ‘clean sheet’.

It sounds great but what does it all mean?

Real-world testing means exactly what it says, the researchers at AV-Comparatives identified 355 infected URLs that were delivering a malicious exploits and drive-by-downloads and then tested each vendor to see if they are detected. By testing this way it imitates the exact way that you or I might encounter an infected website in our everyday lives.

And what is meant by a false positive?

To check that a product does not over block or even block every web site or file to achieve 100% detection scores, sites and files known to be clean are tested to ensure they can run without hindrance from the anti-virus product installed. A detection of a clean file or web page as malicious is regarded as a false positive and it can be devastating to your everyday life as you can no longer access or run the program, file or web page.

A perfect game for an AV product is perfection itself, 100% detection with Zero false positives. Giving you the confidence to browse and go about your online life knowing AVG is there and providing you best detection rate with zero risk.

Click the award below to see the full test results.

And I can’t write this blog without mentioning the hard work and diligence of the AVG researchers and engineers that work 24 x 7 to make all this possible, well done team and keep up the good work.

 

Cleaning Up Your Digital Life

Spring is here! The sun is shining, winter clothes are pushed to the back of the closet, and people are heading to the beaches and parks to embrace spring weather.  Well, at least here in California.

For many of us, we view spring as a time to purge and clean – out with the old and in with the new – a new opportunity to throw out old clothes or to make the garden look a little tidier.  So why not clean up your digital life as well?

Your phone may not be the first thing you think of when you think of Spring Cleaning but if your phone is like mine, then your entire life is on it!  Looking at my photos alone, I have 944 pictures.  Many of them are duplicates, as I always take more than one to make sure I get a good one and then I forget to delete them later.   If I go through them one-by-one it will be time consuming, not to mention that I’ll probably get distracted by messages and other notifications.

That why I recommend you install AVG Cleaner™ for Android™ from the Google play store.  It has a great photo cleaning app that identifies “bad” photos and allows you to review them the way you could review photos in some dating apps, swipe right to keep or left to reject.  It also shows duplicate photos and makes automatic recommendations.

Because photos contain a lot of data, it’s also a good time to review the settings on your phone to ensure that you don’t fall foul of publishing your location when you did not mean to.  Here are a couple things to keep in mind:

–        Photos can contain specific location information stored in metadata within the image itself.

–        The location data usually includes the precise GPS coordinates of where the photo was taken, as well as the time and date it was captured.

It’s an easy task to switch off the feature that allows location data to be stored in the photo.  Here are the steps:

  • Disable location services for the camera on your smartphone.
  • Be aware of location options in apps or online services and social media.

In addition to cleaning out photos, AVG Cleaner™ for Android™ also identifies apps and games that you don’t use, which allows you to delete them to save valuable space.  It also contains tools that give you data on which apps use the most storage, battery and data – all so you can make the decision whether to keep them.  In my phone, I deleted 13 apps; including a parking payment apps in cities where I visited one time and apps I downloaded once just to see what they do.

And of course, I can’t write a blog about cleaning up your phone without mentioning updating your antivirus.  If you have AVG AntiVirus for Android™, open it up to run a scan for viruses.  If you don’t have the app, you can always download it here.

Not only does cleaning your phone make the phone perform better but it’s like new again!  Mine is ready for the next round of stuff that I am going to load on it.  All I need is a new screen protector!

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

Follow me on Twitter @TonyatAVG

Follow AVG on Twitter @AVGFree

 

 

 

AVG kicks off National Cyber Security Awareness Month with updated product suite

I am delighted that that we have released our updated Protection and Performance products and suites – consciously timed with the inauguration of National Cyber Security Awareness Month.

Introduced in the US by President Obama, National Cyber Security Awareness Month was conceived to raise awareness and education about cybersecurity, and help citizens protect the nation in the event of a cyber-incident. Throughout October, companies and organizations will be holding conversations, hosting events and taking part in Summits as they look to educate us to “Stop. Think. Connect”.

AVG fully supports this initiative, and is involved in a number of similar, designated days and months throughout the year, such as European Cyber Security Month, which aim to further security education. As we increasingly live our lives online, and the everyday devices in our homes become connected, cybersecurity has rapidly become a personal issue as well as a one of global importance. Most of us now own multiple devices and use apps for everything we do; but our growing dependency on technology, while simple to use, they bring high levels of complexity; and all too often, security and privacy become an afterthought. One of AVG’s goals is to take the complexity of your everyday, online environment and simplify it, making it as easy as possible for you to secure and manage you and your families’ digital lives and keep them protected.

The digital landscape is always evolving, and so too, must the products you use to protect yourself. The latest release of AVG’s protection products and suites are now auto-updated on a continual basis, so users will always have the latest features and capabilities without any required action on their part, removing the need for you to accept or search for an upgrades.

The new release adds significant protection capabilities, including Real-Time Cloud Detection, AI Detection and Improved Malware Detection, are also focused on real-time protection – ensuring customers are always secured against the latest threats.

These product releases continue to underscore our leadership in online security and commitment to protecting devices, data and people, at home and at work – in the August test results from AV-Test, AVG Internet Security scored 100% for both real-time and wide spread malware detection. Make sure to check back here on our blog, AVG Now, throughout the month, to hear more product and service news, and to read some of our top cybersecurity tips.

You can find out more about the latest AVG Performance and Protection products here: http://now.avg.com/avg-new-protection-performance-press-kit/

How to detect and avoid phishing scams

As I predicted last week, the recent data breach at US insurance firm Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield has led to a sharp increase in the number of phishing attacks pretending to be from the company.

Video

What is Phishing?

There are some simple rules you can follow to ensure that you do not fall victim to any of these phishing attacks.

In this short video you will learn how to:

  • Recognise phishing emails in your inbox
  • Check you are on a legitimate webpage
  • View security certificates to ensure sites are safe

 

For more details on phishing and how to stay safe, visit this blog post from my colleague Michael McKinnon.

Follow me on twitter @tonyatavg