Panda Security Offers Guidance on Staying Protected in Face of Flourishing Cyber-Crime Black Market

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Panda Security, the Cloud Security Company, today released guidelines for consumers as well as small and medium sized business (SMBs) to protect their PCs and confidential information from increasingly sophisticated cyber-criminal attacks. These best practices coincide with the release of the PandaLabs Black Market Report and the alarming discoveries it reveals about the growing threats that exist in the marketplace.

According to the report, the Cyber-Crime Black Market is a rapidly-growing industry of cyber-criminals and hackers who are making a business out of stealing personal information for financial profit. This has become a veritable and highly profitable marketplace where online storefronts and individuals are reaping huge financial gains from selling highly coveted items for cyber-criminals, such as bank credentials, log-ins, passwords, fake credit cards and more. The report details alarming findings on Black Market pricing for things such as cloned credit/debit cards (from $180), card cloning machines ($200-1,000), even fake ATM machines (from $3,500).

Staying protected requires a combination of technology solutions, common sense and often overlooked best practices.  At the core of Panda's award winning security solutions for consumers and SMBs is Collective Intelligence, the company's proprietary technology that automatically collects and processes millions of malware samples in the cloud. According to recent comparative tests conducted by AV-Test.org and others, Collective Intelligence is proven to provide the best detection against new and unknown malware.

Panda recommends that consumers and SMBs follow these guidelines to stay safe and secure:

• Never click suspicious links from unknown sources, either via email or social networks. If links are clicked on, unrecognized target pages should immediately be shut down and closed out on the browser.
• Encrypt the information on your hard disk to mitigate the consequences of anyone stealing your computer. Even though it may seem a tiresome or complex task, this prevents anyone accessing your data without the right password.
• Clean out temporary files, logs, cookies and any password reminders or auto-complete features you use with your browser. This prevents anyone using your computer, without your permission, from automatically accessing your webmail, social networks, bank account or favorite online stores. Install all available operating system updates and patches. Cyber-criminals are skilled at exploiting critical vulnerabilities in operating systems and commonly used applications.
• Always use updated anti-malware protection. Despite growing awareness of today's Web-borne threats, many people still don't use even a basic anti-virus solution and leave themselves vulnerable to infections, data loss and identity theft. Consumers can download Panda Security's award-winning Panda Cloud Antivirus software, which is completely free, at http://www.cloudantivirus.com. Panda also strongly advises people to update Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, and Java software, which are all commonly targeted by cyber-criminals.
• SMBs should use a cloud-based security solution that provides complete protection across the three major threat vectors: endpoint, email and web. Panda Cloud Protection provides complete, easy to manage protection for SMBs with uninterrupted service for their entire networks.

"The Black Market research that we conducted at PandaLabs confirmed that the cyber-criminal economy is a self-motivated and exponentially-growing industry that can't be ignored," said Rick Carlson, president of Panda Security USA. "The power that the collective population of cyber-criminals has is staggering. We want to do everything in our power to make the public aware of this growing phenomenon, and provide them with both the technology and practical advice required to stay safe."

For more information on Panda Security products, please visit: http://www.pandasecurity.com/usa/.

About Panda Security

Founded in 1990, Panda Security is the world's leading provider of cloud-based security solutions, with products available in more than 23 languages and millions of users located in 195 countries around the World. Panda Security was the first IT security company to harness the power of cloud computing with its Collective Intelligence technology. This innovative security model can automatically analyze and classify thousands of new malware samples every day, guaranteeing corporate customers and home users the most effective protection against Internet threats with minimum impact on system performance. Panda Security has 61 offices throughout the globe with US headquarters in Florida and European headquarters in Spain.

Panda Security collaborates with Special Olympics, WWF and Invest for Children as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility policy.

For more information, visit http://www.pandasecurity.com. Follow Panda on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Panda_Security and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PandaUSA.

SOURCE Panda Security