Security News
NortonLifeLock, the somewhat clunky moniker adopted by the former consumer business arm of the Symantec Corporation, has announced "Advanced discussions" with rival Avast over a possible merger. "A combination of NortonLifeLock and Avast would bring together two companies with aligned visions, highly complementary business profiles and a joint commitment to innovation that helps protect and empower people to live their digital lives safely," a NortonLifeLock spokesperson claimed in a message to investors.
Avast announced the creation of two new roles key to advancing its business strategy in Identity and Corporate Development. Charles Walton joins Avast to lead the development of Avast's identity strategy in the role of Senior Vice President & General Manager, Identity.
Avast announces the official launch of Avast Business Hub, a new security platform designed to streamline how Avast's channel partners, managed security service providers, and business customers manage their cybersecurity solutions. Avast Business Hub consolidates a number of critical security and availability capabilities for SMBs. It consolidates endpoint protection, patch management, backup and recovery, and remote access and support solutions into an integrated security platform that enables organizations to easily manage and protect their devices, applications, data, and networks.
Smith Micro Software announced that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of Avast's Family Safety Mobile business. With this acquisition, Smith Micro obtains Avast's portfolio of mobile family safety services including location features, content filtering and screen time management, cementing Smith Micro as a market leader in delivering mobile family safety software solutions to wireless carriers.
Avast has announced the appointment of Shane McNamee as Chief Privacy Officer. McNamee has over seven years' experience focusing on data protection and digital rights in a number of high profile organizations, and most recently the Irish Department of Finance and the Data Protection Commission of Ireland.
Avast launched Avast Business Small Office Protection, a solution for small businesses that provides robust, real-time cyber protection that's easy to install and cost-effective. Small Office Protection by Avast Business is an all-in-one security solution for small businesses that protects all types of devices, protecting a maximum of 10 separate devices on any platform.
Security solutions provider Avast this week announced the launch of an Android version of its Avast Secure Browser. Previously available for Windows and macOS, the browser aims to provide users with increased security and privacy while navigating the Internet, shopping, or accessing their bank accounts on their Android devices.
Avast has released an Android version of Avast Secure Browser to extend its platform support beyond Windows and Mac on desktop to mobile. Avast Secure Browser for Android was developed following Avast's 2019 acquisition of Tenta, a private browser backed by Blockchain pioneers ConsenSys, and has been built from the ground up by privacy and cybersecurity engineers focused on total encryption.
Avast has disabled a component in its Windows anti-malware suite that posed, ironically enough, a significant security risk. The software maker switched off the JavaScript interpreter in its toolkit after Google Project Zero's Tavis Ormandy, and his colleagues, alerted the developer to design flaws in the code.
Avast this week disabled a JavaScript interpreter that is part of its antivirus product, after a security researcher discovered a vulnerability that could potentially lead to remote code execution. Despite being a high-privilege process running untrusted input, the emulator was not sandboxed and also had poor mitigation coverage, Ormandy discovered.