In support of the Ukrainian people, Avast has suspended sales and marketing of our products in Russia and Belarus, and we are offering our premium products for free in Ukraine. Read more about our humanitarian efforts and employee support below.
How to tell if you have spyware?🕵️♂️
1️⃣Your device runs slower.
2️⃣Your device freezes or crashes frequently.
3️⃣You start getting a ton of pop-ups.
4️⃣Your browser homepage changes unexpectedly.
5️⃣New icons appear in the taskbar.
Have your devices ever suffered from spyware?
Avast CEO, Ondrej Vlcek on
#TikTok
's partnership with
#Oracle
: "This evolving deal is clearly designed to satisfy both Chinese and American regulators, but it's terribly important the interests of everyday people don't get lost."
via
@Medium
#dataprivacy
How do we protect our kid's
#online
#privacy
? Check out these 4 tips 👇
1️⃣ Lead by example—assess your own habits
2️⃣ Give
#kids
their own accounts & set privacy settings
3️⃣ Explain what personal information is & expectations around sharing
4️⃣ Talk about online stranger danger
Here's 5 tips to stay safe from
#phishing
email
#scams
🎣
1️⃣Be a sceptic!
2️⃣Educate yourself on the latest scams
3️⃣Confirm before you act
4️⃣Change passwords regularly
5️⃣Check your accounts for fraudulent activity
Have you ever received a strange email that you weren't expecting?
There’s only one thing worse than winning a race and seeing a blue shell barrelling toward you… and that’s malware. 🏎️ Learn about the recent rise in game downloads turning computers into crypto mining machines.
"Privacy Zuckering" happens when you are tricked into publicly sharing more information about yourself than you really intended to—but, it happens across numerous
#SocialMedia
platforms. Have you noticed any of these dark patterns?
via
@WIRED
#privacy
Former
#WorldChessChampion
Garry Kasparov
@Kasparov63
takes on the best and brightest at an epic speed chess tournament at the Avast Brno grand opening event.
.
@AvastThreatLabs
has discovered serious security vulnerabilities in over 30 models of
#GPS
child trackers from Chinese manufacturers with more than 600,000 unprotected trackers in use globally.
Watch the video to learn more ➤
We're here to do our part in helping you find your inner happy place—and we know that comes with feeling secure.
Use any of your beloved, and protected,
#devices
to belt out your favorite song 🎤 with the help of Avast
#3DOnlineProtection
👉
Since the lockdown began, Avast Security Ambassador Garry Kasparov
@Kasparov63
has been exploring human rights in the digital domain, tackling the topics of online
#privacy
,
#AI
,
#robots
& the future of tech.
On these topics what are your questions for Garry?
Use
#AskGarry
Protect your whole family's social media accounts! Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram can all be monitored by Avast One Platinum for signs of compromised accounts and act quickly to get them re-secured. Learn more 👉
This may be the first death directly linked to a
#cybersecurity
attack—a woman in Germany died after the Duesseldorf University Hospital was forced to turn her away since they couldn't accept emergency patients due to a
#ransomware
attack.
via
@verge
A jumbo data leak—complete with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles includes more than 50 million unique phone numbers and 622 million email addresses. From the perspective of an attacker, that's a lot of information to get you started.
The Avast Foundation is donating $20m to COVID-19 relief programs in partnership with the
@gatesfoundation
&
@CEPIvaccines
via the
@WellcomeTrust
’s Covid-Zero campaign. We are also donating $5m towards community relief efforts in CZ
Learn more ➢
“I’m a hacker and have gained access to your operating system.” Okay, sure. 👍
Don’t fall for these bogus sextortion scams — learn to spot them right away!
What's most important for you in an online safety tool? One that monitors for signs of identity fraud? Or maybe one that offers 24/7 premium support? Want this and more? Good news! Avast One Platinum has you covered. Get it today 👉
Watch chess grandmaster & Avast Security Ambassador, Garry Kasparov (
@kasparov63
) take on ten different players in an epic chess battle at the
#TwitterHouse
@SXSW
Want to be one of the selected players? Send an email to winners
@avast
.com to find out more, and to apply
#AvastSXSW
World chess champion
@Kasparov63
wowed attendees at Coindesk Consensus, competing against multiple opponents in a single match.
Going to Collision in Toronto? You could have your chance as well! It will be the best game of chess you ever lose
#Consensus2022
#collision2022
Join Avast Security Ambassador, Garry Kasparov
@Kasparov63
on a forthcoming video series exploring today's issues in online
#security
&
#privacy
.
We want to hear from YOU! Please submit your questions for Garry and we'll select the best ones for him to answer using
#AskGarry
Are you ready for
#5G
? The 5G revolution is approaching, which means good things for connectivity & performance. The bad? More connected
#devices
, services & experiences means an increased attack surface for
#cybercrime
.
Learn more 👉
#AvastBig5G
Our phones are connected to almost everything in our lives — our email, apps, photos, and more. But how secure is your phone? Take these steps to keep your phone safe ⬇️
🔒 Keep it locked
🛡️ Set up 2FA on your accounts
📱 Only download apps from official app stores
In the next episode of Garry on Lockdown,
@kasparov63
explores the differences between
#fakenews
& misinformation. This week's special guest is writer & lecturer
@MollyMcKew
Post your questions with
#AskGarry
1/2-Last week, 3/4
@taviso
reported a vulnerability to us in one of our emulators, which in theory could have been abused for RCE. On 3/9 he released a tool to simplify vuln. analysis in the emulator. Today, to protect our hundreds of millions of users, we disabled the emulator.
The US-CERT has released a joint technical alert from the DHS, the FBI, and Treasury warning about a new ATM scheme.
Dubbed "FASTCash," authorities believe the APT threat actors used spear-phishing emails to compromise the bank server ➤
@TheHackersNews
According to a report,
#gaming
#hardware
manufacturer Razer accidentally exposed over 100,000 gamers' personal information, for almost a month. Email addresses & phone numbers were included. Worried about the
#leak
?
Find out more ➤ via
@verge
#Mozilla
urges users to update to
#Firefox
v79 for
#Android
as soon as possible—since a bug was discovered that can be abused to hijack all Firefox for Android
#browsers
on the same
#WiFi
network & force users to access malicious sites.
via
@ZDNet
Avast is partnering with
@foldingathome
to join the fight & find a cure for
#COVID19
, which requires enormous computing power. How does it work? Simply install the free program, and allow it to run overnight—while you sleep!
Join Team Avast (ID
#236798
):
Does your college know too much about you?
#Privacy
advocates are worrying that the
#surveillance
trend among
#schools
bringing
#students
back to campus is going too far, too fast. So, how do you protect yourself from too much oversight?
Learn more 👉
GIFs are everywhere. What if an innocent-looking GIF, meant to make people laugh, hacked your smartphone? Not a theoretical idea for
@WhatsApp
users with
#Android
devices.
Check it out ➤ via
@TheHackersNews
iPhone users—Facebook may be actively using your camera without your knowledge while you're scrolling your feed. "By now, everyone should be well aware that any iOS app with camera access can secretly record you."
via
@thenextweb
White hat hackers have discovered an easy way to crack passwords from routers with WPA2 security.
"Those with a short Wi-Fi password should change it right now.” To prevent your router from being hacked with this new attack, we recommend the following ➤
#BREAKINGNEWS
Avast opens its
#IoT
Lab at its HQ.
@AvastIoTLab
will allow malware analysts a dedicated space, to test radio frequency experiments in a Faraday cage, as well as use analysis tools for dissecting IoT traffic for further inspection.
#AvastIoTLab
Researchers discovered nearly 145 apps available on the Google Play Store contained malicious Microsoft Windows executable files.
Some of the malware-infected apps have been downloaded over a thousand times and display 4-star ratings ➤ via
@HackRead
We're thrilled to open source our machine-code decompiler to help the
#cybersecurity
community fight malicious software!
RetDec allows anyone to study the code of apps to see what the apps do, without running them.
Get the full scoop on our blog ➤
Announcement: The boards of
@NortonLifeLock
and
@Avast_Antivirus
are excited to report that they have reached agreement on the terms of a proposed merger between the two companies. Read more here:
Don't sacrifice
#privacy
or let the ever-changing
#cyberthreats
of the online world catch up to your devices. Right now, we're making it easier than ever to get your hands on our best bundle!
Don't miss 50% off Avast Ultimate—grab this deal TODAY 👉 .
What impact will AI have on cybercrime?
@Kasparov63
and
@pechoucek
say that just as scammers use AI for their purposes, we use it to create defenses against their attacks. Our threat detection engines use AI to detect scams,
#phishing
sites, & patterns of malicious files
#SXSW
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has signed a contract with facial recognition company Cleaview AI. This comes after an investigation into the
#privacy
practices of Clearview
#AI
back in January & several lawsuits filed against them.
via
@verge
In this week's
#cybersecurity
headlines: why automated proctoring
#software
is alarmingly incompetent for students & how 306 apps on the
#GooglePlay
Store refused to patch
#security
flaws.
Security News Roundup ➤ .
Listen to a fascinating conversation between
@Kasparov63
and Avast CISO
@jayabaloo
on how private-sector cybersecurity and cryptocurrencies will shape the future of privacy.
Email Hack Prevention Tip: Don’t click links in email or texts.
Instead, open a new tab and go to the website of the company in the email to see if the information matches the official source. Here are 10 easy steps to protect yourself online ➤
#phishing
Listen, we get it. Textbooks are expensive. But maybe that deal you found on a sketchy site is a little *too* good. Stay safe from ebook scams this semester.
Garry
@Kasparov63
addresses the "cancel culture" trend with author & culture critic, Thomas Chatterton Williams
@thomaschattwill
on Episode 5 of Garry on Lockdown.
Do you think
#CancelCulture
as a whole does more harm than good?
Watch it now ▶️
#AskGarry
Researchers can now send secret audio instructions undetectable to the human ear to Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant.
With audio attacks, the researchers are exploiting the gap between human and machine speech recognition ➤
@nytimes
FB admitted last week that its Android apps for Facebook Lite and Facebook Messenger uploaded logs of users' call and text-message histories to Facebook servers.
Here's how to disable log and contact-list syncing for Android ➤
@tomsguide
@snd_wagenseil
📅 On October 1, Google will be banning
#stalkerware
apps on the
#GooglePlayStore
by updating its developer program policy. Stalkerware apps can be used by parents to keep track of their children—but cannot be used to track a person.
via
@Forbes
Time to get moving! ⏰🏃
How to speed up your slow internet ⬇️
✅ Move your computer closer to the router
✅ Close unnecessary background apps or programs
✅ Clear your cache!
✅ Install the latest software updates
Public Wi-Fi Tip 1: Use a VPN or Virtual Private Network
It encrypts data traveling to and from your laptop or phone, and hooks you up to a secure server—essentially making it harder for other people on the network to see what you're doing ➤ via
@WIRED
What are the pros and cons of using a virtual private network (VPN)?
Comparatively speaking, the negatives are negligible, and the good outweighs the bad. However, it's important to know what they are. Here's everything you need to know about VPNs ➤
Security
#NewYearsResolution
: Use two-factor authentication, a VPN and a password manager.
Here are 7 steps to better secure your digital life in the new year ➤ via
@TheParallax
Tourists entering China in the Xinjiang region are being forced to install Android malware onto personal devices that downloads all text messages, contacts, call logs, and scans for over 70,000 different files.
Read more ➤ via
@motherboard
#privacy
Credit card provider, Capital One, has been fined $80 million over last year's
#data
#breach
that exposed the personal information of more than 106 million credit card applicants of Americans—including 140,000 Social Security numbers.
via
@TheHackersNews
Headed to
#SXSW
2023? Join us to hear Chess Grandmaster and Avast Security Ambassador Garry
@Kasparov63
and CTO of Gen, Michal Pechoucek, chat about protecting your digital privacy in a time of cyber warfare. Click for more session info ➡️ See you there!
Avast IoT Labs researchers
@illethrias
&
@illushin
have discovered serious security flaws in two popular set-top boxes, which could allow cybercriminals to store malware on the devices for the purposes of launching
#botnet
attacks or
#ransomware
➢ .
We’re excited to announce that
@Evernym
, a leader in self-sovereign identity (SSI), is joining the Avast family!
Learn more about this exciting new partnership 🧡💚