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May 11 2012
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AVG Reports First Quarter 2012 Financial Results
AVG announced its first quarter results on May 10.
“AVG’s solid execution across the board drove strong first quarter financial results and marked a healthy start to 2012. We are pleased with our financial performance and the fact that we have exceeded our Q1 expectations,” stated J.R. Smith, chief executive officer of AVG. “During the quarter, we grew our user base, increased our revenue per average active user and enhanced our portfolio of products and services, adding new features, such as Do Not Track.”
Click here for AVG’s full first quarter 2012 results
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AVG talks technology and changing childhoods at Cybher
Over the past 18 months, we have been taking the lead in discussing how technology has fundamentally changed childhood, through our AVG Digital Diaries reports.
Our reports have been well received throughout the media, being splashed by some of the biggest newspapers and blogs on either side of the Atlantic, and each stage has provoked lots of interesting debate about this crucial topic.
With this in mind we are really delighted to have the opportunity to speak at the upcoming Cybher conference in London on 12 May. Cybher is an event for women who blog and will be a great opportunity for us to discuss the findings of our Digital Diaries surveys.
Jill Hunley, AVG’s global head of social media, will be speaking about all five stages of Digital Diaries at 11.20am and will discuss such findings as: a child has an online footprint from, on average, six months old; and the fact that more three and four year olds can play basic computer games than ride a bike.
In our latest stage, we found out that parents are often still secretly check their teenager’s social media accounts when they are 16 or 17 years old.
If you are at Cybher be sure to catch Jill’s talk or pop in and say hello at AVG’s stand. AVG will also be there in force with members of our community team taking pictures and live tweeting. Follow the tweets with the hastags #CybHer and #DigitalDiaries.
We will also follow up with a blog about the day and our activity there.
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AVG CodeWord: Patch Updates in May
As some readers will already be aware, “Patch Tuesday” is the label used by Microsoft to denote the company’s monthly release of remedial software updates designed to fix flaws which have been uncovered and/or exploited in the Windows operating system and its wider ecosystem of platforms and applications.
May 2012′s Patch Tuesday sees a busy set of seven ‘bulletins’ be released for public consumption. Three are classified as ‘critical’ and four as ‘important’ with a total of 23 vulnerabilities being highlighted.
The fixes themselves are channelled towards issues that have been highlighted within Microsoft Office, the Silverlight application framework for Internet apps, and the .NET programming platform.
Of note is the fact that bulletin #2 impacts all three of these technologies. Also of note is the fact that bulletin #1extends backwards to impact Office 2003 and Office 2007 editions with a ‘critical’ rating on Windows and an ‘important’ tag for Apple Max OS X users.
Patch updates can be brought into action on Windows machines using the Microsoft Update service or by using update management software. The MS12-029 #1 bulletin is said to be the highest priority at this time as this Microsoft Office vulnerability could be used to gain control of a user’s machine without requiring the user’s interaction. Reports suggest that simply viewing an attached file in the ‘preview’ pane of Outlook is sufficient to trigger an exploit based upon this flaw.
Microsoft says that an attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user; but users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on a networked system should be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
In line with Microsoft’s software fixes we now also see Adobe’s monthly patch release timed to coincide in synch — and Adobe’s May 2012 addresses five vulnerabilities in the company’s Shockwave player.
The release of these patch fixes does not necessarily mean that vulnerabilities have been widely exploited, or indeed exploited at all — although they do though exist as a call to both users and IT administrators to install the latest updates as soon as possible in order to lock down their data security.
Why the Czech Republic?
Have you ever wondered why some of the world’s leading anti virus companies are at home in the Czech Republic and Slovakia?
Well so has the Economist blog, which posted an interesting article about why the breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993 might have led to three big players in software security, AVG, Avast and Eset, emerging from the rubble of Communism.
The article concludes that fighting the Internet’s hackers may somehow be in the Czech DNA.
Martin Rehak, Head of Cognitive Security (CoSe), a firm that monitors internet traffic for anomalies that might signal industrial hacking or “advanced persistent threats” says: “We’re not criminals at heart, but we can think like them.”
For the whole story click on Security Czechs
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May 10 2012
Safer Android apps store from Livewire Mobile and AVG
AVG and Livewire Mobile are joining forces to give Android users more peace of mind.
Livewire Mobile will provide Android app stores for mobile network operators and handset manufacturers that are security checked by AVG.
Livewire Mobile will host and manage the new app stores on its Daius platform. Every app being offered to consumers will be pre-screened by AVG’s technology and every app update similarly screened on the device following the initial download.
AVG’s Mobilation® for Android security solution will be made available free of charge to every user of the secure app store to complete the security clearance process.
AVG CEO JR Smith explains the need to protect smartphone users: “The growing use of mobile devices to connect to social networks and entertainment services has made it a preferred method for cyber criminals to spread malware.”
JR points out that our recent AVG Q1 2012 Community Powered Threat Report reported a major increase in the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to target Android users by tricking users to install malicious apps on their devices.
He adds: “In 2011 alone, Google removed more than 100 malicious apps from the official Android market, Google Play. This joint offering with Livewire Mobile will help give Android users peace of mind to use their phone apps to interact with their favorite social networks and entertainment services safely.”
Livewire Mobile COO Dave Moreau believes that while Google has made great advances in providing security for Google Play, malware, viruses and privacy are all significant issues for smartphone owners.
“The solution we have put together with AVG provides an innovative “clean” service for consumers and helps MNOs and handset manufacturers deliver on their duty of care to their customers.”
May 08 2012
AVG Feedback Update: Week 16
AVG Firewall blocking Guild Wars 2
A few AVG users reported that the AVG Firewall is blocking the Guild Wars 2 game client update. Please proceed as indicated in this AVG Forums post should you face a similar issue. Raymond G. published a short PDF guide on how to change the AVG Firewall configuration in order to allow Guild Wars update properly in the linked Facebook discussion.
Should the issue persist, please do not hesitate to contact AVG technical support or describe the situation in AVG Forums.
AVG Service Pack 1 released
Please be informed that we have released a cumulative service pack 1 program update (AVG program version 2012.0.2127). The program update availability is limited to some regions at the moment in order to prevent overloading our update servers. The availability restrictions will be eventually removed and the update will be distributed to all users. More information about the AVG 2012 Service Pack 1 could be found in these AVG Forums posts:
AVG compatibility with Firefox 12
We are happy to inform you that AVG 2012 compatibility with Firefox 12 has been fixed with the recent 2012.0.2169 program update. In order to be able to install this update, AVG 2012 Service Pack 1 needs to be installed already (AVG program version 2012.0.2127). Please refer to the previous paragraph for more information about the Service Pack 1 update.
After the AVG 2012 Service Pack 1 is installed, simply click the Update now button to install the program update:
Trojan horse infection
AVG Forums visitors have recently reported a couple of Trojan horse infections which appeared to be difficult to remove. Should you face any trouble removing an infection detected by AVG, please check this AVG Forums thread for a few tips on how to remove infections. An infection is sometimes coming back when stored in the System Volume Information folder. You can disable the operating system’s restore functionality temporarily in order to remove the malware from this location as described here.
If the infection is still coming back, it could be accompanied by an undetected rootkit. We recommend scanning your computer using updated AVG Rescue CD in such case. AVG Rescue CD is able to remove known rootkits easily.
Please do not hesitate to contact AVG technical support should you require assistance with infection removal.
Disabling AVG Secure Search after removing the AVG Security Toolbar
A few AVG users mentioned that the AVG Secure Search configuration remains present after removing the AVG Security Toolbar (more information on removing the AVG Security Toolbar can be found in this FAQ article).
The procedures described in the previous weekly overview were unable to completely remove search provider remnants from all browsers, therefore we have updated the procedures and posted them in AVG Forums.
Please refer to this AVG Forums thread, if you wish to change the default search provider in your browser(s).
Alternatively, you could find detailed instructions in one of the following FAQ articles:
AVG Feedback Update: Week 16
AVG Firewall blocking Guild Wars 2
A few AVG users reported that the AVG Firewall is blocking the Guild Wars 2 game client update. Please proceed as indicated in this AVG Forums post should you face a similar issue. Raymond G. published a short PDF guide on how to change the AVG Firewall configuration in order to allow Guild Wars update properly in the linked Facebook discussion.
Should the issue persist, please do not hesitate to contact AVG technical support or describe the situation in AVG Forums.
AVG Service Pack 1 released
Please be informed that we have released a cumulative service pack 1 program update (AVG program version 2012.0.2127). The program update availability is limited to some regions at the moment in order to prevent overloading our update servers. The availability restrictions will be eventually removed and the update will be distributed to all users. More information about the AVG 2012 Service Pack 1 could be found in these AVG Forums posts:
AVG compatibility with Firefox 12
We are happy to inform you that AVG 2012 compatibility with Firefox 12 has been fixed with the recent 2012.0.2169 program update. In order to be able to install this update, AVG 2012 Service Pack 1 needs to be installed already (AVG program version 2012.0.2127). Please refer to the previous paragraph for more information about the Service Pack 1 update.
After the AVG 2012 Service Pack 1 is installed, simply click the Update now button to install the program update:
Trojan horse infection
AVG Forums visitors have recently reported a couple of Trojan horse infections which appeared to be difficult to remove. Should you face any trouble removing an infection detected by AVG, please check this AVG Forums thread for a few tips on how to remove infections. An infection is sometimes coming back when stored in the System Volume Information folder. You can disable the operating system’s restore functionality temporarily in order to remove the malware from this location as described here.
If the infection is still coming back, it could be accompanied by an undetected rootkit. We recommend scanning your computer using updated AVG Rescue CD in such case. AVG Rescue CD is able to remove known rootkits easily.
Please do not hesitate to contact AVG technical support should you require assistance with infection removal.
Disabling AVG Secure Search after removing the AVG Security Toolbar
A few AVG users mentioned that the AVG Secure Search configuration remains present after removing the AVG Security Toolbar (more information on removing the AVG Security Toolbar can be found in this FAQ article).
The procedures described in the previous weekly overview were unable to completely remove search provider remnants from all browsers, therefore we have updated the procedures and posted them in AVG Forums.
Please refer to this AVG Forums thread, if you wish to change the default search provider in your browser(s).
Alternatively, you could find detailed instructions in one of the following FAQ articles:
May 07 2012
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