We’ve passed another milestone – at approximately 1800 GMT yesterday, there were more than 29 million people online on Skype. Another record broken, and an opportunity for us to remind you that you can get Skype in all sorts of places – on your computer, on your mobile and even on your TV.

Happy calling!

Skype Blog

It’s been two weeks since we held Panda’s 3rd Security Blogger Summit in Madrid, and finally I find the time to offer my personal view on the topics discussed at the event.

The Summit, attended by more than 300 people, was a complete success as well as a fantastic opportunity to bring together some important figures in the security field and share opinions while enjoying a coffee.

The panel was made up of 5 renowned experts in the Internet world: Enrique Dans, ... Read more »

In a few days, the 14th of February, it will be Saint Valentine’s day. Be ready as we will see malware and spam spreading using this topic to click on links and install Trojans in our computers, as usual.

In fact cybercriminals have already started; some days ago I came across a file called "Love.exe”, and just in case there was such a love message behind I run it (don’t blame, isn’t this what YOU ALL did some years ago in the "I Love You” affair? )

When you run it, nothing visible happens, but it has installed itself in your computer. What for? Well, this is a RAT (Remote Access Trojan) that will give access to your computer and all your personal information. This are just some of the features this Trojan includes:

Remote Desktop
Webcam Streaming
Audio Streaming
Remote passwords
... Read more »

We’re excited to share with you that we have reached another major milestone with Norton DNS. As mentioned in a recent press release update on our Norton Everywhere initiative, we’ve just opened BETA testing of our new Web Content Filtering service within Norton DNS!   

 

This new functionality means that we have extended Norton DNS protection beyond malicious and phishing sites to provide content filtering capability for over 55 million sites, in more than 23 different languages. Users of this new Norton DNS 1.5 beta with Web Content Filtering (BETA) service will be able to create their own custom Web content filtering policy, choosing from over 40 different content categories.

 

This release includes a rede ... Read more »

I started writing this blog entry with the intention of giving you a view "inside the factory” on how computer security software is made.  But as I thought about it, I realized it’s more accurate to say that you have entrusted us with continuous protection of your machine (and your data, and thereby you).  

Perhaps you didn’t realize this. Let me explain how we do it.

Indeed, we produce versions of our product regularly. I'm sure that some of you have already updated to our latest product version 2011, or you could still be running version 9.0 or version 8.5. The ... Read more »

Our tech team at AVG takes all your feedback seriously and over the last week we’ve been working hard to listen to your issues and deliver the changes and bug fixes that you’ve brought to our attention on the AVG Free Forum.

Here’s a list of this week’s fixes:

Rogue Security Software AVG Antivirus 2011

As mentioned on our forum and blog, a rogue piece of malware misleadingly named "AVG Antivirus ... Read more »

As security leaders converged in San Francisco for the annual RSA Conference, we sat down with our Chief Scientist Karel Obluk and Don MacLennan, Senior VP of Product Management, to get their take on the issues being addressed at the show.

Their verdict?

Here’s how Don put it: "We scoured the floor in search of solutions addressing the many security issues faced by the small business owner and we didn’t find a single one.”

 "Despite all the innovations, small business is being left behind,” was Karel’s view.

Given that 90 percent of the workforce in many nations are employed by small businesses, and given that ... Read more »

My interactions with Jitka have been brief – she is a no-nonsense kind of person, and so you’ll almost never see her having a chat at the coffee machine. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in one place for longer than a few seconds, unless she has to sit for a meeting or at her desk. At AVAST for almost 5 years, Jitka oversees the interactions between AVAST Software and our business partners around the globe. I of course had to interview her via email, as I doubt she’d ever have time to meet with me. –Jason Mashak

1. Would you say that AVAST Software partners basically enable avast! users to have contacts and support in their own regi ... Read more »

Have you ever heard about the Morphex PE32 Loader? You are certainly not alone. Even the mighty "Uncle Google” can’t find the proper results:

But … it definitely does exist.

Even if this is an "unknown” name, you should be concerned. Morphex PE32 Loader is supporting the most successful and fastest growing AutoRun worm of 2011.

AutoRun worms are responsible for roughly one out of every eight computer infections. They are spread when an infected USB device is plugged in, misusing the AutoRun function to start an executable file which i ... Read more »

The main role of antivirus being of course to catch viruses, borrowing computer terminology from the human environment is fitting… virus spreads from machine to machine, infecting them just like a flu. And just like in the case of influenza or other virus-type diseases, knowing the virus is the first step to a cure.

In the case of computers, it gets slightly complicated, because while nature presents a new influenza subtype about once a year and only now and then does it really get out of hand, virus creators are getting much faster at "turnaround” in their development of new viruses. There are of course many new technologies, defense shields, and detection techniques for stopping the unknown new viruses, but the inherent obstacle they face is a "false positive” – or, in plain language, a clean, legitimate file being declared a "virus.”

The way we have approached finding unknown viruses at AVAST Software was to use the power of o ... Read more »

In a few days I’ll introduce a new avast! Blog feature, in which I’ll interview various people involved with AVAST Software – team members, volunteer translators, business partners, avast! Forum "evangelists,” etc. –with 5 questions.

This will give you a better look inside AVAST, at the people who make things happen on our end.

The frequency of interview postings will be partly "as inspired” and partly "up to you”… that is, the more you like them, the more they’ll keep coming.

Avast blog

I don’t know about you, but I really like taking the new avast! 6.0 features – WebRep, for example — for a test drive. With the beta 6.0 installed, I opened Google.com and quickly typed in "Longhotlegs” to see what would pop up. I even forgot to add the spaces. In my top five results, there was a stocking e-shop for women (no rating), strip bar in the UK (no rating), the TMZ celebrity blog (green rating), and – my favorite – a Wikipedia entry for Pholciadae.

This spider family includes the creature commonly known as "daddy long-legs”.

From the WebRep perspective, Google.com has a "good rati ... Read more »

This test result arrived just now from the Virus Bulletin.   For easier presentation I have extracted the results, plot it in graph and listed based on the On-Demand score.     A picture is worth a thousands words so have a look to save me the writing.   Note: none of the top 5 brands had any FPs.

Avast blog

The latest Firefox 4 Beta is now available to download and test. We’ve continued our work to improve performance and stability, while also implementing a "Do Not Track” privacy feature to provide more control over online behavioral tracking.

The Web is evolving quickly and so are the ways that your data is collected, shared and stored. With the integration of the "Do Not Track” option into Firefox 4 Beta, you can now check a "Do Not Track” box in the "Advanced” screen of Firefox’s Options. When this option is selected, a header will be sent signaling to websites that you wish to opt-out of online behavioral tracking.  You will not notice any difference in your browsing experience until sites and advertisers start responding to the header.

You can read more about behavioral tracking in this post from Mozilla Privacy Lead, Alex Fowler.  For mo ... Read more »

The latest Firefox 4 Beta is now available to download and test. We’ve continued our work to improve performance and stability, while also implementing a "Do Not Track” privacy feature to provide more control over online behavioral tracking.

The Web is evolving quickly and so are the ways that your data is collected, shared and stored. With the integration of the "Do Not Track” option into Firefox 4 Beta, you can now check a "Do Not Track” box in the "Advanced” screen of Firefox’s Options. When this option is selected, a header will be sent signaling to websites that you wish to opt-out of online behavioral tracking.  You will not notice any difference in your browsing experience until sites and advertisers start responding to the header.

You can read more about behavioral tracking in this post from Mozilla Privacy Lead, Alex Fowler.  For mo ... Read more »