Facebook Adds Seven Security Firms to Antivirus Marketplace

Facebook (News - Alert) has taken steps to boost its Anti-Virus Marketplace by adding a host of products from seven new firms to its service. Users can choose any of the software from avast!, AVG, Avira, Kaspersky, Microsoft (News - Alert), McAfee, Panda, Total Defense, TrendMicro, Sophos, Symantec, and Webroot, for a six-month free trial.

“Our new anti-virus partners bring with them both the latest software and comprehensive intelligence,” wrote the Facebook Security team in a blog post concerning the news. The post described in detail the upgrades to Facebook’s securities that have been made in the last six months, since the AV Marketplace launched. 


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“Over 30 million of our users have visited the AV Marketplace since its launch almost six months ago. Since then, we have been hard at work making your Facebook experience even more secure. We have implemented new phishing protections, and announced the launch of [email protected], an e-mail address available to the public to report phishing attempts against Facebook,” the post continued, “In July we launched new malware checkpoints and provided users with the ability to self-enroll in these checkpoints to help keep their devices malware free.”

The company already had products available from Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos and Symantec (News - Alert), but with the addition of seven new firms, Facebook’s emphasis on security is apparent.

As part of the deal, existing partners will be the first to offer anti-virus software optimized for mobile devices.

The 12 companies are not working in complete competition, however--they will reportedly be working together on a project to improve Facebook’s URL blacklist system, which scans trillions of clicks per day to ensure that every site visited by a user is safe.

The blog elaborated on this aspect of the deal, saying “This means that whenever you click a link on our site you are protected both by Facebook and 12 of the industry leaders in computer security.”