Financial Security in a Connected World With Pure 3.0

Isolation is a key concept in information security. For example, computers critical to services such as electric utilities or financial systems are often kept isolated, or air-gapped, from the Internet. With attackers zeroing in on many of these computers, this can mean the difference for a healthy economy or the well-being of a community.

For home computer users, isolation is almost impossible. Today’s home network is made up of the myriad Internet-connected devices you own: your laptop, smartphone and tablet computer–and there is no such thing as an air-gap between your computer and the Internet. From each of these devices, you can do your banking, check email, look in on investments, upload and store photographs, and access games and social media. And with cloud services such as Dropbox, iCloud and many others, data is stored in any number of locations and accessible from just as many devices. Attackers often need access to just one of your devices to own them all—and all of your data.

Therefore, you must think differently about the security of your computers and how people can access your personal information. Hackers who ply their trade in fraud and identity theft don’t care who you are; they want access to what you have, and will sell and barter your personal information for profit.

You cannot just worry about computer viruses any longer. You must also secure your Web sessions so that your transactions are safe. You must keep your online credentials away from a hacker’s clutches. And you must learn the importance of securely storing and backing up your personal information.

In Kaspersky PURE 3.0 Total Security, software that secures data stored on Windows-based home computers from a variety of threats, all of these fundamental security paradigms are addressed. If, like most people these days, you have several Internet-connected devices in your home, it’s not enough to protect just one of them. They must all be locked down.

Starting with your personal finances, Pure 3.0’s new Safe Money technology uses a combination of digital security certificates and a real-time database that confirms the validity of a website’s reputation to ensure that any online transaction that requires banking, payment card or shopping information goes through safely. Safe Money will verify that a website is authentic and then present you with a secure Web browser that keeps malware from infecting your machine and threatening your personal information or finances. It also includes a Secure Keyboard mode that engages when you enter your credentials online, surf to a banking website or enter payment card information, and prevents your keystrokes from being recorded by key-logging malware.

Pure 3.0 also includes Kaspersky Password Manager, an online password vault where consumers can store log-in information for any online service or application. That secure vault for your passwords can be synced across all of your computing devices with Pure 3.0 installed. Your days of writing down passwords, or wasting time coming up with complicated passwords to satisfy a website’s security requirements are over. Kaspersky Password Manager can come up with those difficult-to-guess passwords for you, and also store them online and away from your device.  This helps protect both your passwords and the devices and data that they’re securing.

Speaking of storage, your hard drive can be a treasure chest of important personal and business documents that can be in jeopardy should your machine be compromised by a hacker. Pure 3.0 removes that risk via its online backup feature that prompts you to backup your important files via Dropbox. Pure 3.0 makes that process easy by creating a Dropbox account during your first session with the software; those files will then be accessible from any computer, anywhere.

At the heart of Pure 3.0 is its malware protection. One special feature in Pure 3.0 is its new Automatic Exploit Protection, which watches over all the software you’ve installed on your devices. Sometimes that software falls out of date or needs a security update that perhaps you’ve yet to install. Hackers love to exploit these vulnerable software installations, but with Automatic Exploit Protection, any abnormal behavior by these pieces of software is blocked, keeping your online experiences secure.

All of these features are part of a larger package of protection offered in Kaspersky PURE 3.0 Total Security, one that you should consider as you more of your life transitions online.