Hickory, N.C. – January 29, 2009- Todd Meche, network manager for St. Martin Parish School Board in St. Martinville, Louisiana, is happy to be a brand champion for AVG Anti-Virus. The Enterprise version of the software, AVG Network Edition, has made his job easier over the years, keeping the schools in his domain secure against viruses and other computer security threats. Meche estimates that over the last seven years he has encouraged hundreds of people to switch to the popular security product. The story of how he came to be such a fan began in 2001, when he first joined the St. Martin Parish School Board. “The school system was already using AVG Network Edition to protect more than 3,000 workstations across fourteen schools in the district,” said Meche. “Everything was running smoothly, and no-one ever seemed to have any problems. In fact, I didn’t know how good we had it until I was in a meeting at an administration conference and heard horror stories about other programs. Other network managers were telling me that the big name brands like McAfee and Norton were causing them major problems.” “Not only were they complaining about the amount of system resources these programs were hogging, slowing entire networks down, but they were also concerned by the sheer time it took to maintain them on a day-to-day basis.” “Many people were surprised that I wasn’t joining in the chorus of complaints, so they all wanted to know what we were using. I was happy to tell them just how great AVG Network Edition has been.” In fact, as Meche reflected on the years he has trusted his networks’ security to AVG Network Edition, he estimated that he’s recommended to over two hundred people that they switch to the product. More than 1,000 teachers and faculty work for St. Martin Parish and over the years, many have asked him what anti-virus products he recommends for their home computers. “Every time someone asks what to use to protect their home computers, I always recommend AVG Free Edition.” “AVG Does Its Job So I Can Do Mine” Since 2001, Meche has kept his AVG Network Edition installations upgraded to the latest versions to ensure the protection kept pace with the growing threats, and he’s always been pleased with the results. “We started out with AVG 6.0 and we kept upgrading whenever a new version became available,” said Meche. “Now we’re using the 8.0 edition. AVG just gets better and better with the release of each version.” He went on to explain that “AVG saves me time, because I don’t ever have to go back and change anything with it. It manages itself. It doesn’t have a lot of fancy options that no-one uses, and that’s just fine with me. AVG does what matters – it does its job effectively so I can focus on mine.” A Great Product and a Great Supplier Meche acknowledged that another reason he is a fan of AVG is because of Walling Data, the distributor from whom he purchases his AVG licenses. Walling Data is the longest-standing and highest-volume distributor of AVG Technologies solutions in North America. Walling Data is also the only distributor to offer all its customers – resellers and end-users – free, unlimited, U.S.-based pre- and post-sales support. Meche was impressed with that Free support offer, especially when it was coupled with generous educational discounts Walling Data offered on the purchase of the software. “AVG is so easy to manage that I’ve have rarely needed tech support,” said Meche. “But with thousands of workstations and more than a dozen sites, we’ve encountered a few issues here and there. All I had to do was pick up the phone and call Walling Data’s tech support team. They’re always polite, friendly, and easy to work with.” “When it comes time to renew our licenses, we always shop around, but we’ve never come across a supplier who’ll give us a better deal than Walling Data.” Today, Meche is still eager to share his enthusiasm for AVG Anti-Virus and Walling Data, adding: “We have the best of both worlds. AVG is the most efficient and powerful security product out there, and Walling Data gives us great pricing and free support. What’s not to like?” For more information about how to purchase AVG Anti-Virus, with Walling Data’s Unlimited US based support included at no cost, please visit http://www.avgantivirus.com # # # About Walling Data Founded in 1994, N.C.-based Walling Data is a value-added technology distributor of technology products for resellers, small businesses, and education and government institutions. Walling Data was the nation’s first distributor of AVG security products and today is the highest-volume distributor for the product in North America, with more than 50,000 satisfied customers. Walling is also the only value-added distributor for Cymphonix Network Composer, an award-winning device that helps companies control and monitor users compliance with internet usage policies. Additionally, the company has recently become a distributor of CyberPatrol’s parental control and business-grade web filtering solutions. Walling Data provides free, unlimited, U.S.-based phone and “we-do-it-for-you” remote support for all of its customers. For more information, visit www.wallingdata.com and www.avgantivirus.com About AVG TechnologiesAVG is a global security solutions leader protecting more than 80 million consumers and small business computer users in 167 countries from the ever-growing incidence of web threats, viruses, spam, cyber-scams and hackers on the Internet. Headquartered in Amsterdam, AVG has nearly two decades of experience in combating cyber crime and one of the most advanced laboratories for detecting, pre-empting and combating Web-borne threats from around the world. Its free online, downloadable software model allows entry-level users to gain basic anti-virus protection and then to easily and inexpensively upgrade to greater levels of safety and defense in both single and multi-user environments. More information is available at www.avg.com. Media Contact: Ashlie Lanning, alanning@wallingdata.com, 919-459-8158 Wordpress Autoblog Plugin

Phishing is the use of fraudulent emails, websites and other techniques to get people to give away confidential information such as credit card details and other personal information by acting as a respected company. You may have encountered phishing if you received a suspected email from PayPal asking you to update your details that turned out wasn’t from PayPal at all – since PayPal has a strict policy of not asking for this information, that wasn’t from PayPal. In this article we are going to look at how you can prevent your customers from falling victim to phishing and stop phishers from using your reputation to steal people’s personal information.The first thing all companies should do in protecting their customers from phishing is to start a customer education campaign. Most of the steps which need to be taken in order to prevent phishing lies with the customers but often customers are not sure of what they should be doing. They need to be taught not to give out their personal information in response to an email, to install anti-phishing software on their computer, and to inquire about any suspicious emails. If you want to protect your customers from phishing you need to start by educating them and teaching them about these steps. The second thing you can do as a company to protect your customers from falling victim to phishing is to implement a policy in which you never ask for personal details, log in details or credit card details via email. Publish this policy and regularly ensure that your customers know about it. Tell them what type of emails they may receive from you and what emails (including the sharing of personal information) they will never receive from you. Let them know who they should contact if they ever receive an email which appears to go against your company’s policy in this regard.If a customer alerts you to a possible phishing incident take this seriously and do everything you can to get the phishing website shut down and alert your clients to this incident in order to protect them from giving out their personal information.Going into specific details on how to secure your website is outside the scope of this article- so we recommend you speak with your IT manager or hosting provider to make sure unauthorized users do not have access to your database and that this is checked regularly.Stop phishers from stealing your customers’ personal information and stop customers from falling victim to phishing by educating your customers about the steps that you are taking to protect them and the things that they can do in order to protect themselves. Today, people not only have the ability to ruin your reputation but also enrich themselves in the process and harm others in doing so. Protect yourself and your customers by putting an anti-phishing policy in place today. Chris Meacham is Managing Member and owner of Now IT Works. Now IT Works provides computer networking services with fixed fees and response guarantees to small and medium sized businesses throughout CT, MA, RI and NY.
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Hickory, NC – January 22nd 2009 – Office Suites PLUS, headquartered in Lexington, KY, provides office space and virtual offices for hundreds of businesses across the country that desire a professional image but need an alternative to long-term leases and traditional office practices . Scott Beauchamp, VP of Technology, and his team of three are responsible for managing a sprawling network of 130+ workstations connected to 45 servers spread across 35 locations in 9 states and used by more than 120 employees. Viruses were falling through the cracks For several years, Office Suites PLUS had been standardized on Symantec for their virus protection needs. Then two years ago, another leading anti-virus software provider offered a special price incentive to switch to their enterprise product. But after only one year in use, Beauchamp’s overall experience with the product was less than positive. “We had workstations that were getting infected even though they were running a managed, enterprise product,” he recalls. “What started happening is that every time a computer started acting crazy, my network administrator would download the Free version of AVG, clean the system, remove AVG, and reinstall our enterprise product.” That’s when Beauchamp decided to make a change. “Several of the IT staff, including me, were already using AVG Free Edition on our home computers, and now my network administrator was using it to clean systems that were supposed to be protected. It only made sense to switch to AVG.” Making the switch to AVG Beauchamp was well aware that AVG Technologies provides the Free product for home use only so he went directly to AVG Technologies’ website to look for a commercial version. After completing a live trial of AVG Network Edition, Beauchamp turned to Walling Data, the longest-standing and highest-volume distributor of AVG Technologies solutions in North America, to provide a quote for 150 licenses. Already confident that the AVG solution could take care of the virus problem, he was delighted to find the software extremely affordable. “The price Walling quoted us for the AVG Network Edition product was very competitive with what we were paying for our current product,” he said. Given that Walling Data also provides unlimited no-cost US-based pre- and post-sales support to its customers, Beauchamp estimates, “we’re saving over 25% on our anti-virus budget by switching to AVG.” He continued, “As we roll out AVG 8.0 across the company to all 130 workstations, I like what I see. It’s very efficient and does a great job protecting our equipment. We have not had a single infection slip through the cracks since installing this product. AVG is an affordable, lightweight and powerful solution to our virus problem.” Deuce Towe, Network Security Administrator for Office Suites PLUS, has also been pleased with the ease of the product’s administration and overall performance. “They have made great improvements with the latest version. I am confident in the software’s ability to protect against infections, with the added benefit of spyware protection, eliminating the need to install additional products dedicated to spyware removal. Our helpdesk tickets related to spyware issues have virtually disappeared, and it is a direct result of our migration to AVG.” # # # About Walling Data Founded in 1994, N.C.-based Walling Data is a value-added technology distributor of technology products for resellers, small businesses, and education and government institutions. Walling Data was the nation’s first distributor of AVG security products and today is the highest-volume distributor for the product in North America, with more than 50,000 satisfied customers. Walling is also the only value-added distributor for Cymphonix Network Composer, an award-winning device that helps companies control and monitor users compliance with internet usage policies. Additionally, the company has recently become a distributor of CyberPatrol’s parental control and business-grade web filtering solutions. Walling Data provides free, unlimited, U.S.-based phone and “we-do-it-for-you” remote support for all of its customers. For more information, visit wallingdata.com and avgantivirus.com About AVG AVG is a global security solutions leader protecting more than 80 million consumers and small business computer users in 167 countries from the ever-growing incidence of web threats, viruses, spam, cyber-scams and hackers on the Internet. Headquartered in Amsterdam, AVG has nearly two decades of experience in combating cyber crime and one of the most advanced laboratories for detecting, pre-empting and combating Web-borne threats from around the world. Its free online, downloadable software model allows entry-level users to gain basic anti-virus protection and then to easily and inexpensively upgrade to greater levels of safety and defense in both single and multi-user environments. Media Contacts: Ashlie Lanning 919-557-7890 Customer made this change.  keyword software

Computers are very detailed machines that function by set rules, codes and languages. Everything follows a pattern and schedule in order to operate efficiently. Computer viruses can affect the cosmetics of a computer such as the screen and display appearances or the simple functions such as the way the keyboard operates or the functionality of the drives. Some of these symptoms may seem to be only a minor inconvenience, but when you see these signs you should wonder what may have caused the change and what else may be going on that you can’t see. Other symptoms can include loss of files, decrease in memory space, slow operation and damaged programs.
The writer of the virus determines how they will infect the system as well as what they want the virus to do. In most cases, a virus will perform damage to the host system, and may do this while performing another function such as retrieving information, and then spread to the remainder of the network.
A computer virus is similar to a medical virus in that it often occurs even when precautions were taken to prevent it. Particularly malicious viruses steal information and data, which may be confidential. This may be customer or client information of a personal nature whether medical, financial or some other form. It may be company information specific to employee’s records, user names and passwords or other functions of the business. Information may simultaneously be erased. It can pick up information from any other computer in the network. It can locate other users and obtain their information.
There are many programs available and they are a must-have for an individual’s personal computer and certainly for that of a business. Strong measures must be taken to prevent viruses within a company, as one infected computer is opening the door to the entire network, putting clients, customers and even employees at risk. Businesses should understand that the condition of their system is susceptible to change with every employee that signs into the network. Training should be instituted to prevent damage by teaching employees how to determine what is safe use of the system, how to update their protection programs and how to know if something is questionable and when to bring it to the attention of the IT department. It is always helpful to set up the virus protection programs to run automatically and the individual systems or the network as a whole can be set to automatically update the programs that are install along with fixes and patches as needed. In addition to anti-virus programs a filter may also help to block viruses.
While the anti-virus is placed inside the firewall, a filter is placed on the outside and closer to the server. Users may be limited as far as what can be received and may not be able to open attachments. This will undoubtedly create an inconvenience, though it is in the best interest of the company and will save money by eliminating loss of business if a shutdown is needed to correct a problem. A virus usually spreads very quickly and for a large company this can be costly. Prevention is always the least costly way to reduce the risk of virus. WP Robot Wordpress Autoposter