Lavasoft News - December 2006

Editorial graphic Welcome to December – a hectic month often filled with stress when it should be a time to reflect, spend quality time with loved ones, and just be jolly. 'Tis the season, right? Well, at Lavasoft we have reason to be jolly this holiday season as a new era awaits us. The arrival of Ad-Aware 2007 is just around the corner. Until then, Lavasoft News will keep you entertained and educated with news on holiday shopping scams (and how to avoid them), the push for anti-spyware legislation and the year’s top security vulnerabilities.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Lavasoft News!

Tell us what you think at editor@lavasoft.com

News from Lavasoft

'Tis the Season to...Get Scammed
The holiday season marks the perfect occasion for cyber criminals the world over to prey on online shoppers looking for gifts for their loved ones.

Call for Consensus Anti-Spyware Legislation
The rise of spyware, malware, and other Internet maladies is strengthening the fight to protect our privacy and personal information. However, current regulations may not be enough to deter cyber criminals or bring about real change for computer users.

Zero-Day Attacks Top Year’s Threat List
The surge in zero-day attacks and exploits of Microsoft Office are the two key threat trends for 2006, according to the trusted SANS Institute’s annual report on Internet security.

Passwords: One Piece of the Privacy Puzzle
Most computer users know about anti-virus,anti-spyware, anti-spam and firewall software to protect their online information. But how often do we overlook one of the most basic forms of cyber security - passwords?

Spyware Shorts
Lavasoft News has compiled a list of "spyware shorts" - summaries of other spyware stories making news around the world this past month.

Spyware Newsbits

New Targets in Detection (November 2006)
Protect your privacy with a complete list of new targets for November 2006.

Lavasoft Takes on Codec Challenge
Lavasoft has released a special edition of the Definition File database that contains over 5,000 codec variants. Read our Press Release here for more details.

Another Award for Ad-Aware SE

SoftPedia has awarded Ad-Aware SE Personal 1.06 with 5 stars and the SoftPedia Pick Award. See the entire product review here.

To get all news on one, printable page, click here

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*offer ends 31/12/2006

In the spirit of giving this holiday season Lavasoft is giving you 15% off all Ad-Aware SE products – Plus, Professional and Enterprise – the entire month of December. Take advantage of this merry deal and keep yourself and your loved ones spyware free!

* Please enter the following coupon code to retain your rebate: zz46tv12x8c

Holiday Shopping Stats
American consumers will spend more than $32 billion in holiday Internet purchases this year.
Source: Jupiter Research

As many as 12 million people could fall prey to ID theft in some form – 40% of them between mid-Nov. and Jan.1.
Source: LifeLock Inc.

Term of the Month
A zero-day attack is a virus or other exploit that takes advantage of a newly discovered hole in a program before the developer has made the fix available, or sometimes even before they are aware the hole exists. "Zero-day" is the day you open the virus-infected e-mail or get hit by a drive-by download because the anti-virus or anti-spyware software you keep up-to-date knew nothing of the attacks.
Read more at Wikipedia here.

Tech Tips
Attention Windows Users: If Microsoft Windows is your main operating system, be sure to visit Microsoft Security Updates and stay on top of all of the security patches that Microsoft releases on a monthly basis. Ongoing Microsoft vulnerabilities underscore the need to:

1) Regularly update your operating system with the latest patches, and

2) Maintain active virus, hacker, spyware and other identity theft protection.

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