McAfee has extended the AntiVirus Plus Software offer for Facebook users who ‘like’ McAfee.
Facebook users simply click “Like” on the McAfee Facebook page (www.facebook.com/mcafee), go to the “McAfee 4 Free” section, and choose their country from the drop-down menu in order to download a six-month subscription to the McAfee® AntiVirus Plus software.
According to McAfee, the “software protects users’ PCs from online threats, viruses, spyware, other malware, and includes the award-winning McAfee® SiteAdvisor® web site rating technology. After the six-month McAfee AntiVirus Plus subscription period, Facebook users may be eligible for special discount subscription pricing.”
The special discount is not defined or listed on the McAfee site.
McAfee AntiVirus Plus (3 user) sells for around $71 locally. The 2011 release includes new features such as a refreshed Home screen, an Idle feature which delays full scans until the PC has been idle for a preconfigured amount of time, and better integration with Microsoft Windows 7 firewall.
McAfee has also improved Alerting and Microsoft Outlook 2010 integration, moving the anti-spam tool to an Outlook tab instead of on the toolbar to align with Outlook 2010’s look and feel.
McAfee has been using facebook to connect with existing users for over a year in an attempt to educate facebook users about Internet security. McAfee maintains that users need to be more diligent around security on social networking sites, when engaging in chat and opening emails.
“We have seen an absolute huge rise in malware worldwide over the past 12 months, probably more than the previous five years combined,” said David DeWalt, McAfee’s chief executive. “We are seeing a lot more malware specifically designed and targeted at large social networking applications. These are just the trends in the industry.”
McAfee also offers a 7 day trial of WaveSecure from its facebook group page. WaveSecure is a McAfee application for Android, Blackberry, SymbionOS, WindowsPhone and handsets which can run java applications, including the Sony Ericsson Vivaz and Samsung Jet.
Similar to the MobileMe functionality offered by Apple for iPhones, WaveSecure allows users to backup, restore, lock, locate and even remotely wipe a handset. Meantioned in lifehackers ‘Top 10 Strategies for Getting Back Your Lost or Stolen Stuff’ Wavesecure costs $19.90 (USD) per year.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Nearly 600,000 Facebook users have fallen victim to a new Facebook application scam. Similar to previous attacks that notify the user that one of their friends has found a video with an “Oh, wow, is this you” message, the Photoshop scam is provocative users in the same way. This virus spreads through Facebook chat, instantly sending out similar messages to all of your friends, whether they are logged into chat or not.
The message tells users that a friend has made a Photoshop image of them and includes a link that prompts you to launch an application. The application is basically a phishing scam, prompting the user to grant access to their Facebook account (like most do), but also grants access to Facebook Chat. Once the application has been allowed, you have access to a gallery of people with their heads on animal bodies — none of which are you.
M86, who first reported the scam on their blog, says that it doesn’t seem like the virus is spreading malware, adware or spyware at this time, but the infectious virus is spreading quickly – at a rate of 90,000 clicks per hour.
The best thing to do is to neglect all applications of this kind, but if you have made the mistake of giving the application access to your Facebook data, you need to get rid of it. Notify your friends to let them know that it’s not a legit application so that they can ignore any messages from you. Go to your privacy settings page in Facebook and remove the application to prevent it from continuing to send out multiple messages or something more devious than a man-dog. You should also change the password to your Facebook account, just in case the application is storing the information to be used at a later date. This application may look benign in nature, there are very few of these things that spring up just to get a laugh.