Tag Archives: Identity

A lesson in online identity

This week I noticed two news stories that brought this advice to mind.

The first involves the popular dating app Tinder, where a developer exposed a serious security flaw to trick men into flirting with each other, thinking they were talking to a woman.

I am sure you can imagine the type of messages that went back and forth and the anger when men realized that they were talking to other men looking for women.

The developer claims that he created the hack to highlight the harassment that women often face on dating apps.

The second story is rather amusing but also very serious, a convicted fraudster escaped from prison by tricking prison officers with a fake bail email.

Using a mobile phone, Neil Moore created an email account belonging to a fake domain closely resembling the court service’s official address. He then emailed the prison’s custody inbox with instructions of his release.

Authorities only noticed Moore was missing three days later when lawyers turned up to interview him. Fortunately, he later turned himself in and was charged with “escape from lawful custody” where the judge described the behavior as ‘ingenious’ criminality.

There’s a chance that you’ll think these stories are quite amusing, which of course they are, but both have different but serious consequences.

When we communicate with others online it’s important that we validate them in the same way we would in real life. We scrutinize people’s behavior and appearance to make an informed decision on trustworthiness and character.

You of course can’t look someone in the eye on the Internet, so it’s doubly important to scrutinize their credentials (email addresses, user names etc) and their behavior (what they are asking of you and what they claim).

Perhaps that’s a lesson that the folks at Her Majesty’s Prison Service could do with learning.

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AVG Technologies Previews New Identity-as-a-Service “CloudCare SSO” at Cloud Summit

AMSTERDAM and SAN FRANCISCO –  22 October, 2014 – AVG Technologies N.V. (NYSE: AVG), the online security company for devices, data and people, today unveiled a preview of its new Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) services to partners attending its Cloud Summit in Phoenix, Arizona.   Managed services provider (MSP) partners at the Summit had an exclusive first-look at how AVG’s full Cloud-security and remote monitoring & management (RMM) services portfolio can help MSPs deliver secure sign-on (SSO) for easy, one-click security and control over their customers’ cloud applications and mobile data.  Partners will soon be able to experience the breakthrough integration of Multi Factor Authentication, Secure Sign-On, Mobile Device Management and Mobile Application Management all managed through Active Directory to ease complexity and simplify management.

“The aim of today’s game changing advance in the expansion of AVG CloudCare’s cloud-based security and mobile management capabilities is to help MSPs grow their businesses further by enhancing the levels of protection and control built in to their customer services,” said Mike Foreman, AVG’s General Manager, SMB. “We know that with the rapid adoption of mobile, BYOD and Cloud applications customers will require additional expertise from partners to help control and manage all their users’ applications and data.  We are listening. That’s why, for the first time in this space, AVG is combining Centrify’s IDaaS capability with our existing RMM platform to provide a single, secure access layer to all our Cloud services as well as more than 2,500 of the most popular Cloud-based business apps for partners and their business customers.”

Underlying technology for AVG’s new IDaaS capability is driven by Centrify, a leader in unified identity management across cloud, mobile and data center environments.  Management of multiple passwords is a major headache for businesses, especially as they adopt more and more mobile and cloud-based applications.   Figures show up to 80 percent of end user breaches are password related. Furthermore, industry events like the Heartbleed bug have raised popular consciousness of the need for stronger password protection, especially in sectors like financial services or health where tight data security and privacy requirements are mandatory.

“IDaaS is solving real problems for the enterprise and thanks to the initiative of market-savvy companies like AVG the technology will soon be giving AVG partners and their businesses the same benefits in a format they can afford,” said Shreyas Sadalgi, Centrify’s SVP of Business Development for Centrify. “We are thrilled to be working closely with AVG, a globally respected security brand with one of the largest active partner bases in the industry.

An exclusive preview of the Centrify IDaaS solution is available to resellers and MSPs attending AVG’s inaugural Cloud Summit for partners taking place from October 20th-22nd 2014 at The Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort in Chandler, Arizona.

For more information or to contact sales for a free, not for resale account, please email [email protected]

AVG’s business security portfolio is supported by a worldwide network of more than 10,000 partners.  Its pedigree in this area makes it ideally positioned to help smaller IT companies and MSPs harness low cost, cloud-based tools so they can transition into fully-fledged managed services businesses.

In October 2012 AVG introduced AVG CloudCare™, a cloud-based administration platform offering resellers a new way to implement and manage services such as antivirus, content filtering, online backup and email security services for their business customers. In June 2013 it added AVG Managed Workplace, an open eco-system Remote Management & Monitoring (RMM) tool. AVG‘s vision is to make the lives of MSPs and their business customers as easy as possible, regardless of whether staff are in the office, at home, or on the road.

About Centrify

Centrify provides unified identity management across data center, cloud and mobile — resulting in one single login for users and one unified identity infrastructure for IT. Centrify’s software and cloud services let organizations securely leverage their existing identity infrastructure to centrally manage authentication, access control, privilege management, policy enforcement and compliance across on-premise and cloud resources. More than 5,000 customers have deployed Centrify across millions of servers, workstations, and applications. With Centrify, organizations are reducing their costs associated with identity lifecycle management and compliance by over 50 percent.

About AVG Technologies (NYSE: AVG)

AVG is the online security company providing leading software and services to secure devices, data and people.  AVG has over 182 million active users, as of June 30, 2014, using AVG’s products and services including Internet security, performance optimization, and personal privacy and identity protection. By choosing AVG’s products, users become part of a trusted global community that engages directly with AVG to provide feedback and offer mutual support to other customers.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.