Focus of North American collaborative effort is to solidify social media security

Munich/San Francisco, 8th December 2011 – IT security experts Avira and the global service for online privacy and reputation protection secure.me are consolidating their partnership in a bid to improve online security and personal data and privacy protection for Facebook users. Avira and secure.me will offer customers in the US and Canada a bundled product package enabling better personal data and privacy control on Facebook. The product bundle will be available in 2012 and Avira will distribute the bundle in the US and Canada markets. Avira and secure.me have been working together for some time, focusing mainly on the European market.

“We share one vision with Avira: we believe that personal data and privacy protection is the essential next step in the evolution of IT security. Whereas, in the past, cyber crime mostly posed a risk to material values such as hardware, software, data and documents, it now affects people more directly – namely their privacy and their identity,” said Christian Sigl, founder of secure.me. “secure.me is the blueprint of your Internet life. It helps users own this blueprint and take control over their personal data and privacy. It also allows parents to protect their children on Facebook. By combining Avira’s high-quality IT security solutions with our privacy protection products for social media we can offer state-of-the-art security to all Internet users – you could call it IT Security 2.0.”

“Protection of personal data has always been Avira’s business, and as a result of our collaboration with secure.me, our customers can now also benefit from comprehensive protection in their use of the world’s largest online social network,” said Chris Weltzien, Managing Director of Avira. “One of the most important tasks for the IT security industry over the coming years will be to provide effective solutions for the protection of personal information. We are delighted that, together with secure.me, we are able to lead the market with a unique and as yet unrivalled solution.”

secure.me continually and reliably checks a user’s individual Facebook profile as well as their network of Facebook friends or that of their children. This way, secure.me enables complete control over critical content and all activities and status updates that appear in the user’s Facebook profile and that of their children and friends. The service includes biometric facial recognition software to keep a tab on any photos of the user appearing on the network. Furthermore, secure.me identifies sensitive personal information and offers tips for optimizing your privacy settings. The software also identifies unsafe links appearing within the controlled profile or friends’ network, that may contain viruses or other malware. secure.me is soon to become available for use with other social networking platforms.

Avira and secure.me will offer a joint product bundle. To learn more about the offering and to get notified about the availability, please visit the following website: www.avira.secure.me

About secure.me

secure.me is dedicated to a safe and carefree Internet experience. The online service protects personal data and the privacy of individuals and business owners and provides transparency regarding their reputation on the Internet. secure.me also empowers parents to keep their children safe on social networks such as Facebook. secure.me is available worldwide in ten different languages and at no cost.

secure.me is based on the proven monitoring and content-analysis technology of the German online reputation management pioneer myON-ID Media GmbH, founded in 2006 by Mario Grobholz and Christian Sigl. myON-ID Media is backed by several investors including T-Venture, the venture capital company of Deutsche Telekom (German Telekom). The company is headquartered in Munich and has an office in San Francisco, California.

Further information about secure.me is available at www.secure.me.

Acerca de Avira

Avira es un proveedor global de software antivirus y de soluciones de seguridad informática para consumidores y empresas, con veinticinco años de experiencia y más de 100 millones de clientes. El producto estrella de la compañía, Avira AntiVir, es conocido por su extrema fiabilidad y sus numerosos premios VB100. Y como miembro fundador de la asociación IT Security Made in Germany (ITSMIG e.V.), Avira es el único proveedor de software antivirus que garantiza que ni terceros ni gobiernos pueden tener acceso o espiar los datos de sus clientes.

Además de protegerle online, el fundador y CEO de Avira también promueve el bienestar en el mundo offline a través de la fundación Auerbach que financia proyectos benéficos y sociales en el ámbito artístico, cultural y científico. Para más información únase al foro sobre seguridad en www.facebook.com/avira.