Major upgrade protects home and SMB computer users against a broad spectrum of security threats including web exploits, malware, rootkits, system intrusion, and spam

Czech Republic – February 27, 2008 – AVG Technologies, a leading provider of Internet Security software, announced the release of AVG Internet Security 8.0 for the 28th Feb, the latest version of its flagship suite for consumers and SMBs. AVG 8.0 delivers a significant number of new benefits to users designed to deliver enhanced protection against the latest web-borne threats without sacrificing the product’s signature efficiency and unobtrusiveness.

“Today’s Internet is like the Wild West of old. While it’s packed with new and exciting places to go and things to do, it’s also rife with hidden threats. AVG 8.0 delivers solid, reliable protection against these sophisticated web-borne threats that can infect computers without the user even needing to click a link,” said Karel Obluk, CTO of AVG Technologies and the chief architect behind AVG 8.0. “The nature of the Internet threat landscape has changed dramatically, yet most conventional security solutions are still fighting yesterday’s battle with their narrow focus on viruses and spyware. AVG 8.0 expands upon our traditional strengths in anti-virus and anti-spyware with the integration of the LinkScanner real-time safe searching and surfing technologies obtained through our acquisition of Exploit Prevention Labs in December 2007.”

"The nature of online threats has changed from script kiddies to more organized criminal efforts,” says Brian Burke, Program Director, Security Products at IDC. “Consumers and businesses would be well advised to consider real-time protection against drive-by downloads and other infective methods that require no user interaction."

In addition to the LinkScanner web exploit protection, other significant new benefits include faster scanning performance through a multi-threaded scanning engine that leverages the latest multi-core hardware; protection against rootkits and system intrusion; security for MSN and ICQ instant messaging; and detection of infected file downloads. The completely redesigned user interface makes it easy for novice users to benefit from comprehensive out-of-the-box protection while enabling more advanced users to perform extensive customization of the product.

"The new safe search and safe surf technology in AVG 8.0 enables us to offer the only true real-time protection against web threats on the market today; the type of threats traditional firewalls, anti-virus and internet security products cannot stop,” said J.R. Smith, CEO of AVG Technologies. “Real-time detection of these threats is essential, as poisoned web pages may only be infective for a matter of hours, after which the perpetrator moves on to another site. Other products on the market offer web protection based on databases of sites that may or may not have contained some kind of malicious content at some time in the past. The LinkScanner technology we acquired with Exploit Prevention Labs enables us to, unlike the competition, scan search results, web links and web pages in real-time to ensure they are safe before they are opened, which is the only time that really matters – before the user is potentially exposed. In other words, we can stop threats before they become a problem for people.”

 An example of why real-time web page analysis is so important to both site owners and visitors was described by AVG chief research officer Roger Thompson in his blog (http://explabs.blogspot.com) on February 25, 2008. The website of the St Kilda Football Club, a major Australian Rules football club, was being reported by Google as a site that “may harm your computer”; while the site was likely hacked at some time in the past, it is clean now, yet anyone searching for the club’s website using Google will be blocked from reaching the site.