Security is one of those things you simply have to have if you own a phone or a tablet or a computer, and there’s really no way around it anymore. But security is still hard, and if you’re finding it’s not getting any easier, AVG will have an easier system coming shortly.
The more we rely on our computers, the more important security becomes. We’re storing everything on these things, and on phones, and tablets, and watches, and the cloud. Banking details, and logs, and tax information, and passports, and more, and because there’s an influx of information, it needs to be protected.
But security isn’t always easy, and while solutions have been changing over the past couple of years with subscriptions to handle everything in your life — mobiles, tablets, computers and the like — it’s still not easy to manage everything at once.
And that’s where security group AVG wants to make some changes.
“There are so many people who are disadvantaged when it comes to keeping themselves secure,” said AVG’s Michael McKinnon to a panel of journalists this week, making reference to seniors and the elderly as examples of people who just may not be across security, and could easily be at risk.
Think of your parents and grandparents: if they use the internet, what are the chances that their information is secure? And if they were to accidentally surf a webpage with malware, would they be likely to be infected?
If these are questions that you’re not sure of an answer for, AVG’s upcoming solution will be here shortly.
Arriving in February will be AVG’s “Zen”, a centralised security platform designed to make lots of devices controllable and monitored from a security point of view, with a web-based location for you to check out not just your phone, tablet, and computer, but computers of other people, such as your parents and grandparents.
This isn’t information that will necessarily tell you what grandma has been looking at online, but rather when they last updated their security, and if they’re currently infected, allowing you to take control of that process and let AVG’s security system fix the computer from afar, protecting that computer so that the relatives don’t need to call you up and complain of security problems.
Two subscription models will be coming for the Zen platform, too, making the whole “what do I buy” question a little easier, with a “protection” subscription for your typical internet security, antivirus, and firewall technologies, while a “performance” subscription will add computer and device tune-up, enhancing speed of devices that sit under the protection of the subscription.
Pricing hasn’t yet been finalised for Australia, though — that’ll be next year — but this could provide families with a one-stop shop for the parentals to manage their security at home, as well as with any other family members that may or may not live at home.
