Phishing is far from new. The number of phishing attacks is growing every year, and the methods of attackers are improving.

What are phishing attacks?

Phishing attacks are a type of online fraud in which cybercriminals seek to get hold of personal data – logins and passwords of social networks, mailboxes, bank accounts, and bank card numbers.

Types of phishing:

• Mail. The oldest method of obtaining confidential data is through email campaigns with letters of various contents – from tempting offers to real threats. Using psychological influence, cybercriminals successfully obtain the personal data of users.
• Online. It appeared much later than the mail one and is a more sophisticated way of extracting information. Since in this case, the attackers use high-quality copies of authoritative sites that require the introduction of confidential data.

That is, the user enters his username and password, or bank card details in the form, without noticing that the address has been spoofed. In this case, the merit of the anti-phishing functions of antivirus software is especially great, since they detect and block such pages even before the user has time to see them.

Also, larger cyberattacks target the devices of employees of large companies to gain control over control systems.

Why you need anti-phishing software?

The need to use anti-phishing anti-virus is due to the statements of various organizations in the field of cybersecurity about the rapid development of phishing in the world.

Of course, in most cases, the goal of cyberattacks was large firms and gaining control over their infrastructure, but the scale of the problem is understandable, and the need to combat Internet fraud is obvious.

For example, compared to 2017, the number of cyberattacks in 2018 increased by 60%.

According to the results of their observations, almost a third of office workers safely open emails from strangers, therefore, become potential victims of phishing.

Internet fraud is rampant and, as practice shows, increasing cyber literacy has not yielded tangible results.

Phishing attacks are literally a key threat to information security.

Therefore, the problem should be solved by using anti-virus software, which provides a high-level protection against phishing attacks.

Effective anti-phishing protection is implemented only in paid versions of antivirus software. Let’s take a look at three of the most popular ones.

Norton

In Norton antivirus, anti-phishing protection works in three directions at once:

1. Blocking phishing sites. Norton quickly detects and automatically blocks sites that are fraudulently trying to obtain personal information.
2. Checking links in the social media feed. In addition to sending out luring links by mail, cybercriminals now post them on the pages of the most popular Internet communities. Norton has addressed this issue by checking social media links.
3. Safely store usernames and passwords and protect your identity. With the use of antivirus, the threat of receiving user data during automatic input is reduced to zero.

Key benefit: Norton’s antivirus protection is available in even the most basic version of Norton Antivirus.

Kaspersky

To assess the effectiveness of Kaspersky Lab products in terms of anti-phishing protection, it is better to look at the test results of the independent organization AV-test, according to which Kaspersky Anti-Virus recognized 100% of phishing links, of which none were false.

1. Automatic module for checking virtual keyboards and links.
2. An updated anti-phishing module with a heuristic analysis function that can get detailed information about a suspicious site.
3. Data collection protection. A special module timely monitors and blocks resources that record usage scenarios.

Antiphishing functions are also available in all versions of Kaspersky anti-virus software, but remember that the basic package is available only to PC users and only for Windows.

Panda

In general, Panda’s antiviruses can boast of both an extended set of user settings and the availability of an anti-phishing module for all packages, even the basic one. The software is available for both PCs and mobile devices running any system.

However, in terms of anti-phishing protection, one drawback should be highlighted: when tested by an independent organization AV-test, it was Panda that showed a relatively slow performance of the anti-phishing module.

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So, how can you clean a USB flash drive from viruses?

1) Checking a flash drive using an alternative antivirus

To begin you can use some kind of antivirus that does not need to be installed (they are also called scanners, online scanners).

It is enough to download such products to your PC and run a system check. They can work in parallel with your installed antivirus and will not interfere with it in any way.

What to choose:

1. ESET’s Free Online Scanner is an anti-virus utility that does not need to be installed. Allows you to run an anti-virus system scan in a matter of minutes (including selecting any disks, flash drives, memory cards to scan).
2. McAfee Security Scan Plus is a very famous software for quick scanning of your computer. It can work in parallel with your installed antivirus (there is no point in removing it after checking).

2) Check with special utilities

No matter how good your regular antivirus is (if it is installed on the system), it cannot “see” and recognize some types of threats (for example, adware, AdWare, SpyWare, TrojanSpy, TrojanDownloader, etc.).

To check your system and flash drive, you must use special utilities.

3) The radical way: formatting the drive

Another way to completely remove viruses from a flash drive (and with them all files from it, be careful!) is to format the drive.

To start formatting, just open “My Computer”, right-click on the flash drive and select “Format …” from the menu.

4) Prevention: how to protect yourself from a new virus

1. Install one of the modern antiviruses on the system, and update it regularly.
2. Configure your system so that auto-launch of applications from plug-in CD/DVD and USB drives is disabled.
3. If as you work, you often have to connect your USB flash drive to other computers, then before opening any files from it on your system, check it for viruses.
4. Those documents that you carry on a flash drive would not be superfluous to have on your hard disk (such a copy can help if the flash drive is lost, or the virus irrevocably spoils the files on it).

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If you do not have a full-fledged antivirus on your computer, or you want to double-check its performance, then one of the best solutions is to use online antivirus.

This antivirus can work in three main areas:

• check the specific file that you upload to them in the service;
• check the suspicious link (which you want to follow, but are afraid);
• check fully the system and all your drives displayed in Windows.

However, it is impossible to verify the system completely with just one site (because for security reasons sites are not allowed to access your drives)!

But online antivirus has a client, after downloading which, you only need to run it and agree to the scan (it does not need to be installed, registered, configured, updated, etc.), which is convenient and saves a lot of time.

ESET’s Free Online Scanner

Very powerful and simple scanner from the notorious company ESET. Designed not only to remove classic viruses but also to potentially dangerous software.

The product is completely free, it works immediately after launch. Special settings do not require. The client weighs only about 6 MB, which allows it to be downloaded even to a PC where there is no high-speed Internet access.

F-Secure Online Scanner

To start a system scan, just download and run a 512 KB file! Then your system and memory will be automatically checked and cleaned of malicious elements.

The utility works fully automatically! Its one of the fastest means of checking your PC: from the moment you go to the developer’s site to the start of the scan, it will take no more than 10 seconds!

HouseCall – Free Online Virus Scan

A product from the famous manufacturer Trend Micro. Allows you to quickly check any drives, flash drives, system, memory, etc. for the presence of malicious elements: viruses, trojans, adware.

In the settings, you can specify a specific drive for verification. After scanning and cleaning your system, the program automatically “collapses” and leaves no traces in Windows.

McAfee Security Scan Plus

A very good product from a renowned manufacturer. Allows you to run an anti-virus scan of your computer for malware in a matter of seconds.

In addition, the program will check your current security and inform you, if there is a problem with your current antivirus, is it configured correctly, whether the database updates, firewall settings, etc.

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It is worth noting that all antivirus programs in this list are completely free and, above all, safe. The list of the best antivirus programs changes regularly, as developers change and improve something every time, and sometimes completely refuse to provide services for free.

It should be noted that all of these antiviruses have paid versions. We did not consider them. The selection includes only free solutions without time limits. In other words, selected antivirus that does not ask for payment after a few weeks or months of use.

Avira Free Antivirus

Avira Free Antivirus is a comprehensive solution for protecting your computer from any malware. The complex checks not only files, but also potentially dangerous Internet connections, and thanks to the extension for popular browsers – even malicious websites.

The best part is that Avira doesn’t put a lot of strain on your computer. After installing a full set of security, the computer does not begin to spend 90% of its resources to support the life of the antivirus, which is especially important for owners of budget computers and laptops.

AVG AntiVirus Free

AVG AntiVirus Free is an excellent antivirus, the developers of which have made the main bet on protection against phishing. And this is very commendable. Despite the increase in computer literacy, more and more Internet users are becoming victims of phishing attacks. By installing AVG, you will most likely protect yourself from scammers.

However, both regular viruses and Trojans are successfully detected by the antivirus – the database is updated regularly. The only downside to AVG is the forced installation of the extension for the AVG SafePrice browser. If you are installing AVG, be sure to keep this in mind and remove the extension if necessary.

Panda Free Antivirus

Panda Free Antivirus is very different from most other antivirus programs. First of all, the interface. Here it is unusual but attractive and easy to use.

Panda has a built-in free VPN – a trifle, but nice. But the main thing, Panda has a special emergency mode. It is activated if the computer has been affected by viruses or by the user and has stopped turning on. In this case, the antivirus allows you to perform a recovery.

Avast Free Antivirus

One of the best free antivirus Avast is not going through the best of times. This is largely due to the fact that the antivirus has become frequent and intrusive to request the transition to the paid version. Of course, not everyone likes it.

However, like an antivirus, Avast is still good and as easy to use as possible. The user only needs to give permission to conduct intelligent scanning once in a certain period of time and that’s it. Then Avast will figure it out itself, including it will automatically and quietly check files for potential threats in real-time. Another plus of Avast is a large number of additional features.

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The effectiveness of antiviruses is often the subject of controversy: a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of free software to protect PCs. To put an end to such discussions, the independent AV-Test laboratory decided to test 18 popular free antiviruses.

What is known about the best free antivirus

According to the specialists of the German company, the antivirus-winner — Microsoft Windows Defender — entered the top ten most effective antivirus programs and received maximum ratings in the categories of “usability” and “reliability of protection”, as well as 5.5 points out of 6 possible by the criterion of “performance “

Microsoft Windows Defender has demonstrated 100% protection against malicious attacks, including zero-day threats, as well as the absence of false locks and warnings.

Why Microsoft Antivirus is the Best

In particular, the application successfully recognized 20,428 virus samples recorded in the last 4 weeks before the test.

During testing, there were used the current version of the program with permission to access cloud services and the current version of signatures.

To test the effectiveness of the antivirus there were analyzed the operation of all its components using real threats. Experts also noted a low level of false positives — after analyzing 1,384,100 samples, the antivirus made a mistake in only two cases.

Where to download antivirus

Note that Windows Defender is already part of the Microsoft operating system and does not require a preliminary installation.

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Avast made great strides in its previous update. Version 5 set the stage for the modern, massively popular and free security suite with a new interface that ditched a quirky, late-’90s jukebox style for a more polished look. Easier to navigate, it also became easier to add new features.

Make no mistake, Avast 6 adds features both big and small. Some that had previously only been available to paid upgrade users are now free for all versions and newer features have been seamlessly added to the interface experience. If you’re familiar with Avast 5, upgrading to Avast 6 won’t be that big of a leap.

Source: Cnet.com

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