kaspersky internet security
- The time: 6.30 pm
- The date: a dusky evening in early autumn (3 October to be precise)
- The place: The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town, a subterranean ‘speak-easy’ bar in central London
- The event: the UK press launch of Kaspersky Lab’s new flagship consumer product: Kaspersky Internet Security – Multi-Device.
As we turned down a bustling London side street, walked into a restaurant and then quite literally climbed through a fridge door to access the subterranean ‘speak-easy’ bar The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town, we began to feel a little bit like Alice in Wonderland.
Curiouser and curiouser
The atmosphere of mystery and intrigue thickened as expectant guests started to arrive and to sample a delicious range of themed cocktails (Malware Mule or Security Sling, anyone?). Each guest had been sent a secret password in advance which they had to bring along with them. We knew that we were in for an unusual and intriguing evening and we weren’t disappointed.
Once all the guests had entered via the fridge, helped themselves to a Cyber Sour and made themselves comfortable, Lee Sharrocks, Consumer Sales Director at Kaspersky Lab UK, welcomed the journalists and gave a brief introduction to our brand new award-winning security solution, Kaspersky Internet – Security Multi-Device. Then, magician and mind reader Oliver Fray, took to the floor.
That’s magic
Oliver enthralled the audience with an astonishing performance in which he guessed not only the passwords of eager volunteers, but other personal details of their lives. Both entertaining and wildly disconcerting, Oliver’s display reminded us of the risks that carelessly oversharing information can present, and that we are all vulnerable to having our personal information exploited.
Kaspersky Lab recently carried out some research in collaboration with a German university into consumers’ perceptions of online safety. Interestingly, the research suggests that mobile devices have now become such intrinsic components of our daily lives that they have assumed the role of emotional companions. This strong emotional connection we feel for our smartphones makes us blind to the potential online threats that they can expose us to, and vulnerable to online exploitation.
Malware beware
As Oliver finished up, Senior Security Researcher David Emm delivered a short but fascinating overview of today’s security landscape. Did you know that more than 200,000 new malware samples are discovered every day? That 73% of Europeans now use more than one device to access social networks? That 17% of Brits confess to sharing ‘more than they probably should’ on social media, and that four in ten people in the UK can’t tell when a friend’s online account has been hacked? In the face of these statistics, it’s startling to think that the majority of consumers have little or no adequate protection in place for their connected devices.
Which leads us neatly back to the concept behind the evening’s party. In a nutshell, consumers are connected to the internet more frequently and via more devices than ever before. And Internet threats can reach you from any device – smartphone, tablet, ereader – not just the traditional PC. It is vital in today’s age of multi-connectivity that you protect yourself across all of them.
Multi-device daiquiri? Yes please…
As the journalists absorbed the information they’d been given, chatted with Kaspersky Lab spokespeople, mingled with the mind reader (who left a string of perplexed and delighted faces in his wake wherever he turned) and enjoyed the Multi-Device Daiquiris (definitely our favourite), the evening gradually drew to a close. No one left empty handed: guests filed back through the fridge and out into the night clutching goody bags filled with branded chocolate, vodka, jelly beans and of course a copy of KIS MD.
For more photos from the evening, check out our album on Facebook.
Think about it? We do. To download a free 30 day trial of KIS MD, click here.
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