Lavasoft Blog
Identity theft is a big business. This was confirmed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commissions annual report, Consumer Fraud and Identity Theft Complaint Data, which shows fraud complaints that consumers have filed with the agency over the past year. Again this year, identity theft tops the list of all fraud complaints. In fact, the FTC received 258,427 complaints related to identity theft - 32 percent of the total complaints! Consumers reported fraud losses totally over $1.2 billion.
Home computer users are not the only ones forced to wage the war against cyber threats. Malware attacks constitute a critical and constant security risk to corporate networks. The staggering statistics speak for themselves: as many as 40 percent of organizations will be targeted by financially-motivated cyber crime by 2008, research from Gartner shows.
For those of you who are old enough to remember Roseanne Roseannadanna on Saturday Night Live, "My father always used to say, it's always something. If it's not one thing, it's another"
Microsoft is pushing their weight around. We've got Ad-Aware customers contacting us left and right because Microsoft is telling them to uninstall their Ad-Aware software in order to run Windows Live OneCare "security software" (the quotation marks are mine).
Today, February 12, is Safer Internet Day in many countries throughout Europe. In connection with that, Eurostat, an office of the European Communities, has released stats on Internet activities.
Results from surveys of households and individuals in the European Union show that:
- One person in eight avoids e-shopping because of security concerns.
Time for a little shameless self-promotion. In a security software review by Swedish TechWorld.se, Ad-Aware 2007 has been ranked number one on its list of recommended anti-spyware programs, beating out Windows Defender and Spybot Search and Destroy. In fact, Ad-Aware 2007 earned 94 points out of a 100 point grade scale.
Since the article is in Swedish, we'll give you a quick recap of what TechWorld highlighted in its review:
- Top-notch Quarantine and Ignore List features
Who's responsible for those unwanted messages flooding our inboxes? According to a recent report, there has been a considerable shift in where spam originates from; European spam networks are now said to be pumping out more unsolicited messages than those in the U.S.
Last week, along with other groups, security companies, and government agencies combating spyware and malware, members of the Lavasoft team attended the Anti-Spyware Coalition Public Workshop in Washington, DC.
Almost daily now we come across a website that was obviously set up to take advantage of the unfortunate soul that lands on their page.
Here's an example of a page that is serving up a triple threat! Click on the image for a larger view.
First, they lure you in through the title "Lavasoft adware". Our product is Ad-Aware...not adware. That's the stuff we're fighting. There is also a screenshot of the Ad-Aware user interface. The text on the page is basic information that doesn't serve a purpose at all.
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