Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET
Online scammers will use all kinds of tricks to steal anything — from your money to your identity. And not all security products are able to fully defend you against their tactics. Now, Avast has beefed up its free security software with a new feature that aims to thwart scams no matter what the source.
Known as Scam Guardian, the protection tries to do more than just detect malicious or suspicious URLs. Trained on scam data, Scam Guardian uses AI to analyze the context and language behind a shady web page or text message. The feature also goes behind the scenes to scan the actual website code. The intent is to look above and below the surface for signs of deceptive and dangerous content.
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The scam protection included with Avast Free Antivirus consists of two components.
Avast Assistant
The AI-powered Avast Assistant attempts to guide you when you encounter deceptive websites, SMS messages, emails, links, offers, and other content. Instead of acting solely on its own, the assistant will start a dialogue with you to help you understand the content and offer advice on what to do.
You can also manually upload a suspicious image or copy and paste a questionable message or link, and the assistant will analyze it for you and recommend the appropriate action. Further, you can ask specific questions about security to elicit the assistant’s feedback. The Avast Assistant is available in both the Windows and Mac versions of Avast Free Antivirus.
Web Guard
The Web Guard tool uses telemetry from Gen Threat Labs and AI trained on millions of popular websites to analyze and find scams hidden in content and code. The goal here is to uncover dangerous URLs based on information as well as AI smarts. Web Guard is accessible in Windows and Mac as well as on Android and iOS.
Paid subscribers to Avast Premium Security get a third feature via Scam Guardian Pro. Beyond access to Avast Assistant and Web Guard, the paid product includes a tool called Email Guard. This one uses AI to analyze your emails and decipher the actual context and meaning of words in the message. Email Guard scans each email before you open it to distinguish between safe and suspicious ones. Like Web Guard, this tool is available on Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.
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New and updated versions of Avast Free Antivirus and Avast Premium Security automatically include the Scam Guardian protection. Avast is also promising to add other AI-powered security tools to its security software later this year. The new ones will provide greater defenses against more sophisticated scams that exploit SMS messages and phone calls.
“Today’s scams aren’t crude or obvious — they’re tailored, targeted, and AI-enhanced, making it harder than ever to tell the difference between truth and deception,” Leena Elias, chief product officer at Gen, said in a news release. “As scammers take advantage of rising data breaches and leaked personal information, anyone, anywhere, can become a victim of scams. That’s why it’s never been more important to make powerful AI-powered scam protection available to everyone, everywhere.”
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