Vu Ngoc Son, Research & Development Director of BKAV, said on Buu dien newspaper that it has conducted a survey on the copyrighted anti-virus software product market in Vietnam by considering the number of products sold and activated at the biggest sales agents and supermarkets nationwide. He said that though an official figure still cannot be revealed at this moment, but BKAV’s products are accounting the market share which is higher than 85 percent, the figure released by BKAV after the survey conducted in 2009.

BKAV software products have been mainly distributed through big distribution chains like Tran Anh, while a small proportion of products have been distributed by home appliance centers such as Pico or Nguyen Kim.

In the north, BKAV software products have been going through the two biggest distributors of Gia Long and An Phat. Also according to Son, the buyers of BKAV are mostly students, households, those who do not have deep knowledge about information technology.

Prior to that in June 2011, BKAV said that with 98.1/100 scores on RAP scale, BKAV anti-virus software product has jumped to the third position among 43 software products that were tested by Virus Bulletin. Especially, BKAV surpassed other well known names such as Kaspersky (94.3 scrores), AVG (94.4 scores), Avira (93.7 scores).

Most recently, on November 23, on the Information Safety Day 2011, BKAV Pro 2011 got the title “the most favorite information safety product” (anti-virus malware item) when 41 percent of people voted for it. Meanwhile, Kaspersky Targeted Security and Symantec Protection Suit Enterprise Edition, which got 33 percent and 12 percent votes, ranked the second and third positions, respectively.

This was for the third time BKAV Pro surpassed foreign products to hold the first position.

According to Nguyen Anh Dung, Deputy Director of An Phat Informatics Company, since the beginning of 2011, the company has sold 4000 Kaspersky version a month, while the sale of BKAV was higher by 10-15 percent.

Besides Hanoi, An Phat has also been distributing anti-virus software products in seven provinces and cities in the north and the central regions, including Hai Phong, Nam Dinh, Nghe An and Ha Tinh. However, the sales in the localities just account for 20 percent.

He said that An Phat has also been distributing other software products, mainly to the orders of projects, not to individual clients.

“People prefer BKAV partially because of the good communication campaign,” he said. For example, recently, BKAV ran the program under which buyers bought two products would give two other free.

Meanwhile, Bui Ba Quang from Tran Anh Home Appliance Center, said that every day Tran Anh sells 10-15 BKAV products and 7-10 Kaspersky products. At Tran Anh, BKAV’s products hold 55 percent, Kaspersky 43 percent, while the other two percent belong to other products such as Norton and Avira.

A representative of a online website has also affirmed that BKAV is the best seller among the three BKAV, Kaspersky and Norton. However, he said that BKAV does not hold more than 85 percent of the market share as BKAV stated.

Both Dung and Quang said that different groups of people choose different software products. For example, those, who have good information technology, would choose Kaspersky, while students and households tend to choose Bkav Pro.

Dung said that people tend to choose Bkav Pro, because they can enjoy better post-sale services from BKAV’s team.

Source:http://english.vietnamnet.vn/en/science-technology/16490/bkav-dominates-anti-virus-software-market-.html

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) seized nearly 18,000 units of branded anti-virus software worth P36 million that were illegally imported in the country.

The shipment of Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 software arrived at the Manila International Container Port (MICP) in one container on November 5, 2011, but it was misdeclared as ordinary CD kit cleaners and CD plastic cases.

“People never learn. If smugglers and unscrupulous importers think that we are laying off on our anti-smuggling drive, they are wrong. We are not intensifying our anti-smuggling campaign only for the holidays. This is going to be a year-round close monitoring of cargoes,” Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon said, as the seized goods were presented to the media on Thursday.

The shipment of anti-virus software was consigned to Plinth Enterprises, whose office is at Trinity Bldg., Kalaw St., Ermita Manila.

It was originally declared as ordinary CD kit cleaners and CD plastic cases with a declared value of only $ 7.095.70 (P 305,115.10). But actual value of the illegal shipment should have been $599,528.12 (P36 million), based on the software’s published rate.

The company also failed to secure an import permit for its software shipment from the Optical Media Board.

“The economic impact of smuggling is tremendous. The government is not only losing much needed revenues because of smuggling, it is also distorting the local market which could eventually affect the country’s business environment. We shall not, therefore, allow illegally imported items such as these thousands of anti-virus software to get through customs,” he said.

Biazon instructed the Run After The Smugglers (RATS) group to file cases against those involved in smuggling.

Source:http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/business/11/24/11/boc-seizes-p36m-worth-anti-virus-software

Hackers have found an anti-virus program from TrustPort with an unauthorized keygen capable of unleashing complete havoc on users who mistakenly installs it, as per the news by securitynews DAILY on August 25, 2011.

According to the researchers of BitDefender discovery, keygen produces authentic user keys for cracked or pirated software in a pirated copy for Photoshop. For example, the keygen would generate a number to match Adobe’s installation-code algorithms.

This keygen spreads through via P2P sharing services, USB media, instant messaging services or email clients, and users may download serious trouble on their systems as this specific illegal tool does a lot more than it is thought to do.

The piece of malware inside the keygen has been recognized by Bitdefender as Trojan.Agent.ASDM and starts the wrongdoing by injecting itself into explorer.exe and adding a list of exceptions to the locally installed firewall. Later on, it circulates a keylogger and a backdoor component on the hacked system.

Researchers stated that this malware not only steals passwords cached in various web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer but also keeps an eye on user’s habit and collects information about the hacked system and, finally, interfering with e-banking accounts and money transactions.

Also, the malware downloads more malware either via internet or from ftp accounts. The samples of downloading and installing Zeus BOT, SpyNet RAT, Bandook RAT, Scwarze Sonne RAT, Apocalypse RAT, Bff BOT, Solitude RAT, PoisonIvy, Cybergate, which indicates cooperation between Trojan.Agent.ASDMand other cyber-criminal gangs.

Company also stated that malware, which spread from keygen, captures video and audio streams users’ computer webcams and logs conversations that take place on social networks or instant messenger.

Security experts said that pirated softwares whether antivirus or anti-malware, while installing updated some software companies check installed software key, if pirated version caught, they disable the working of the software. Unlike genuine software, you do not get support from the developer with pirated version. While working of pirated as well genuine is same, some time the cracks used to activate it contains viruses or malware.

Source:http://www.spamfighter.com/News-16720-Pirated-Anti-Virus-Program-Yields-Nasty-Malware.htm

“My virus scan program (McAfee) gets hung up on scanning zip files for hours, which slows my computer considerably, sometimes freezing up if I try to open/close other programs.”

Because you didn’t give me quite enough information, Monika, like the full name and version number of the McAfee program and details about your operating system, I’m forced to provide broad suggestions rather than specific ones. (Just a gentle reminder to readers: Without sufficient details, it’s that much harder for me to find solutions to your hassles.)

It’s not uncommon for virus scanners to choke on Zip files, which can be quite large. As a result, system performance can take a major hit during the scanning process. That’s just unacceptable.

Fortunately, most anti-virus utilities let you exclude certain files and/or file types, meaning it should be possible to configure your McAfee product to bypass Zip files. Here’s an example of how that might look, as shown in my AV program of choice, Microsoft Security Essentials:

Now, Monika told me she already tried to “program [McAfee] to skip over these files, to no avail.” Assuming you configured it properly, that leaves me with one conclusion: time to switch anti-virus programs. Seriously, there are enough good products out there that there’s no sense wasting any more time or energy on one that’s causing you grief. Do a full uninstall of McAfee, reboot, then install something else.

Again, I’m partial to Microsoft Security Essentials, which just so happens to be free, but the latest version of Norton Internet Security (which you can also get free, if you don’t mind mailing in a rebate form) has received almost universal praise (starting right here at PC World).

One other option I neglected to mention: You could get in touch with McAfee and ask for help. After all, that’s one of the key advantages of paying for security software, right?

Source:http://www.pcworld.com/article/238340/prevent_your_antivirus_software_from_choking_on_zip_files.html

Two Latvian citizens have been arrested overseas for their operation of malicious computer programs which cost computer users over $74 million in losses by selling fake anti-virus software for computers. An estimated 960,000 people were victims in the scam, which is known as “Scareware.”

Scareware is a fake security alert on a users computer which says, for example, “Warning! There is a virus on your computer…Remove now,” and asks to initiate a system scan and clean-up to counter the potential virus or malware.

In reality, once users click “Remove now” they unknowingly have exposed themselves to malware and keylogger programs which are then used to harvest private and financial data from computer users.

Some of these programs ask computer users to purchase the software for clean-up or anti-virus software which further exposes their credit card data when they believe they are buying the bogus software.

The two operators of this scareware scheme have been charged with two counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of computer fraud.

The defendants, Peteris Sahurovs, 22, and Marina Maslobojeva, 23, were arrested Tuesday in Rezekne, Latvia. It is unclear how long the extradition process may take.

Source:http://www.kgoam810.com/rssItem.asp?feedid=113&itemid=29683040