pandas

First introduced in beta in April, Panda Cloud Antivirus graduates to a stable, public release and signifies a major security vendor taking aim at the freeware competition--instead of the other way around. Cloud Antivirus was notable on its beta release for being one of the few security options available to users that contained most of its protections in the cloud. This allowed it to protect users while consuming significantly fewer resources than many competing programs.

Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.0 is notable as a free security solution for two reasons: Panda is a reputable security vendor, and the program achieves … Read more

Panda Cloud Antivirus is notable as a free security solution for two reasons: Panda is a reputable security vendor making its first foray into the realm of freeware security, and the program's goal of freeing up system resources by putting much of the program's heavy lifting in the cloud is definitely attained.

When you open Cloud Antivirus, the main window lets you know whether you're safe or not with a big red or green icon. Cloud Antivirus works as other antivirus solutions do, offering a Quick Scan and a Custom scan for specific folder, files, and drives, … Read more

A rise in malware has caused the number of infected PCs worldwide to increase 15 percent just from August to September, says a report released Tuesday from antivirus vendor Panda Security.

Across the globe, the average number of PCs hit by malware now stands around 59 percent, an all-time high for the year. Among 29 countries tracked, the U.S. ranked ninth with slightly more than 58 percent of its PCs infected. Taiwan hit first place with an infection ratio of 69 percent, while Norway came in lowest with only 39 percent of its PCs attacked by malware.

The study … Read more

In Jeff's absence, Wilson takes the reigns as chief engineer for the show...and runs it in to the ground. Just kidding! Today we invite host of The Green Show and longtime 404 friend, Mark Licea, to join us in a few stories about a handy iPhone app, traveling water bottles, Facebook jealousy, Internet addiction, and a hilarious Calls From the Public!

Hot on the heels of Motherboard and Laserjet comes Earth's newest superdefender, G-FORCE! A big thanks goes out to our buddy Hayato Shimizu for Photoshopping Wilson into this robotic Megaman-looking superhero that fights crime with two cameras and still has time to highlight his hair. We've actually received a lot of really talented Photoshopped images of The 404 hosts recently, so click through the slideshow below for all the images.

Jeff's away on vacation and Wilson surprises us all by stepping up to the board, so bear with us through this episode. With some help from our good buddy The Intern Formerly Known as Mark, we navigate our way through a bunch of newsworthy stories from the Internet, including an iPhone app that tells you the best time to cut out of a movie to use the bathroom, the recent popularity of Internet addiction rehab camps, and how Facebook is trying to ruin your love life. All that, plus a new character on today's Calls From the Public!

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Malware posing as antivirus software is spreading fast with tens of millions of computers infected each month, according to a report to be released on Wednesday from PandaLabs.

PandaLabs found 1,000 samples of fake antivirus software in the first quarter of 2008. In a year, that number had grown to 111,000. And in the second quarter of 2009, it reached 374,000, Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs said in a recent interview.

"We've created a specific team to deal with this," he said, of the rogue antivirus software that issues false warnings of infections … Read more

People routinely look at me as if I'm nuts. Oh, wait, there's a second part to that sentence: People routinely look at me as if I'm nuts when I tell them I don't use any security software: no Zone Alarm, no Norton, nothing.

Instead, I rely on the security measures built into Windows and a few tricks I've learned. So far, it works fine for me.

That said, I usually advise friends and family members to install some kind of comprehensive security package. Because I consider all of you to be like family (yes, even … Read more

Natali Del Conte makes her triumphant return from E3 and joins us on today's show. After suffering through two years with an HTC Mogul, Jeff finally upgraded to the Palm Pre this weekend. Tune in for Jeff's personal review as well as some unfortunate news that has us all reeling...with laughter.

All right, first thing's first: NATALI DEL CONTE. That should be enough to get you guys to listen to today's show. She's finally back from her Tour de California. She was actually at E3 this past week and she gives us the scoop on her first impressions of the event. Actually, it turns out that Natali's been taking some gulps of Jeff's unique brand of Haterade! It's always a pleasure to welcome Natali back to the show, even though she's crossed over the dark side. Welcome home, girl!

We've been talking about the Palm Pre ad nauseam for weeks now leading up to Saturday's release, and Jeff actually woke himself up before the crack of dawn and picked one up. Be sure to listen to the whole episode to hear about the fiasco that happened in line, it's unbelievable, and kind of funny. Pix or it didn't happen, Bakalar! After all that happened, Jeff successfully picked up a Palm Pre, and he loves it! All his contacts from Facebook, Gmail, etc...are now consolidated; music transfers are easy thanks to iTunes (fingers crossed that Apple shows mercy); and the keyboard is surprisingly easy for Jeff's ham shank fingers. Sadly, though, there's one very significant, deal-breaking, horrendous manufacturer's error that needs to be correctly immediately before Jeff turns back into a pumpkin and we lose him forever. Tune in to hear more about this awful glitch and how you can fix the problem!

Updated June 5 10:50 a.m. PST to clarify that scammers were blending their tweets in with legitimate tweets on an already popular PhishTube topic.

Online scammers are targeting people looking for popular topics on Twitter and Google to lure them to Web sites that display fake security warnings and try to sell them antivirus products, PandaLabs said on Wednesday.

This technique isn't new, but seems to be widening on Google and is particularly successful on Twitter where links are spread fast and furiously and people often don't think before they click.

In the Twitter scam, hundreds … Read more

Cybercriminals have moved on from search engine optimization techniques and are now creating fake search sites designed solely to direct Web surfers to pages hosting malware, Panda Security warned on Wednesday.

Previously, attackers resorted to sending e-mails with malicious code in attachments and with links to malicious Web sites and took measures to push those Web sites higher in search engine rankings. Now, they're also creating fake search engines that are showing up in Google search results, according to a PandaLabs blog posting.

When people use the engines to search for popular terms, like "flu statistics," the … Read more