Antivirus firm Avast to BUY AVG for $1.3 Billion

Antivirus company Avast Software is planning to acquire Dutch rival AVG Technologies for $1.3 Billion in cash.

Avast announced today that it would buy Amsterdam-based AVG Technologies for $25 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.3 Billion in an aim to expand its presence in the emerging markets.

With more than 230 Million users worldwide, Avast provides free and paid security software packages for both PCs as well as mobile devices to businesses and individuals.

The deal between the two popular security software companies will provide Avast with 400 Million endpoints -- devices that have some form of Avast or AVG application installed. Around 160 Million of those are mobile.

However, AVG technologies was in controversies for updating its policy that clearly said that the company will be allowed to collect and sell users' "non-personal data" to online advertisers in order to "make money" from their "free offerings" so they can keep them free.

With access to a large number of devices, Avast will be granted more opportunities in Internet antivirus and security-related business, giving the company a bigger pool of data on malware to offer better security products.

"We believe that joining forces with Avast, a private company with significant resources, fully supports our growth objectives and represents the best interests of our stockholders," AVG CEO Gary Kovacs said in a statement.

The deal will also provide Avast with an expanded geographical reach in its primary business as well as the growing number of Internet of Things -- physical devices connected to the Internet, Avast said in a statement.

The offer of $25 per share on AVG represents a 33 percent premium to its closing price Wednesday on the NY Stock Exchange. Avast will fund the transaction using cash on hand and debt financing.

This is the next major tech acquisition in last few months. Just last month, Microsoft made its biggest acquisition by acquiring LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, for $26.2 Billion in cash.

MacKeeper Hacked- 13 Millions Users - 21 GB data Breached

MacKeeper anti-virus company is making headlines today for its lax security that exposed the database of 13 Million Mac users' records including names, email addresses, usernames, password hashes, IP addresses, phone numbers, and system information.

MacKeeper is a suite of software that claims to make Apple Macs more secure and stable, but today the anti-virus itself need some extra protection after a data breach exposed the personal and sensitive information for Millions of its customers.

The data breach was discovered by Chris Vickery, a white hat hacker who was able to download 13 Million customer records by simply entering a selection of IP addresses, with no username or password required to access the data.

21 GB Trove of MacKeeper Customer Data Leaked

31-year-old Vickery said he uncovered the 21 GB trove of MacKeeper customer data in a moment of boredom while searching for openly accessible databases on Shodan – a specialized search engine that looks for virtually anything connected to the Internet – that require no authentication.

"The search engine at Shodan.io had indexed their IPs as running publicly accessible MongoDB instances (as some have already guessed)," Vickery said in a Reddit post. "I had never even heard of MacKeeper or Kromtech until last night. I just happened upon it after being bored and doing a random "port:27017" search on Shodan."

As a result, four IP addresses took him straight to a MongoDB database, containing a range of personal information, including:

• Customer Names
• Email addresses
• Usernames
• Password hashes
• Mobile phone numbers
• IP addresses
• System information
• Software licenses and activation codes

Security Product Using Weak Algorithm to Hash Passwords

Although the passwords were encrypted, Vickery believes that MacKeeper was using weak MD5 hashes to protect its customer passwords, allowing anyone to crack the passwords in seconds using MD5 cracking tools.

The company responded to the issue after Vickery posted it on Reddit, saying that the company had no evidence the data was accessed by malicious parties.

"Analysis of our data storage system shows only one individual gained access performed by the security researcher himself," Kromtech, the maker of MacKeeper, said in a statement. "We have been in communication with Chris, and he has not shared or used the data inappropriately."

Though the company claims Vickery was the only person to access the MacKeeper users’'information; you should still change your MacKeeper passwords and passwords on websites that use the same password.