Press Releases
Emeryville, CA, May 25, 2021 — Avast (LSE:AVST), a global leader in digital security and privacy, today announced a partnership with assistance and insurance provider, Generali Global Assistance, which will provide its award-winning identity protection service to Avast’s user base. The service will be initially available within the United States with further geographic expansion planned later this year. The service provides affordable and immediate assistance for Avast users affected by identity theft and fraud.
“In recent years, identity theft and scams have been on the rise, a trend exacerbated by the recent lockdowns. According to a 2019 report done by the Federal Trade Commision1, Americans lost a total of $667 million to scams, with $700 lost per victim on average,” said Chandler Givens, Director of Product Management, Avast. “In partnering with Generali Global Assistance, we are able to offer Avast customers an affordable, established identity protection solution with live help in order to help mitigate these risks and keep our users protected.”
Generali Global Assistance will provide access for Avast BreachGuard customers to identity theft resolution services including:
- Credit freezes: the service works with users to place a freeze on their credit records with the major credit bureaus, should there be a need to block all new credit activity.
- Lost wallet assistance: specialists assist in notifying the appropriate bank or authority to cancel and replace stolen or missing items, such as debit/credit cards, driver’s license, Social Security card, and/or passport.
- ScamAssist: ScamAssist specialists act as trusted advisors to customers by helping users identify which of the solicitations they received are potentially fraudulent. Within 24 hours of sharing the concerning messages, specialists provide the user with a written assessment of the level of legitimacy of the message. The quick turnaround takes the burden off the customer to figure out if a message is a scam and reduces the risk of them being victimized.
“With increasing cybercrime scams, it’s more important than ever for people to be vigilant in regards to their identity online,” said Jeff Elbaum, VP, Global Sales – Identity and Cyber Protection, Generali Global Assistance. “At Generali Global Assistance, we aim to provide a wide array of Identity, Insurance, and Cyber Protection services and much more to our customers all over the world. We are excited to partner with Avast to provide our identity protection engine to its users.”
Avast BreachGuard monitors data breaches, scans the dark web for personal information, requests removal of personal information from data brokers and prevents them from selling to third parties, ensure users have strong passwords that haven’t been used in a previous breach, strengthens privacy settings for all social media accounts, and provides privacy advice to control the amount of data shared publicly. The Generali Global Assistance service is available to US users of the Avast BreachGuard Windows app.
1Source: “Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2019.” Federal Trade Commission, Jan. 2020, www.ftc.gov/reports/consumer-sentinel-network-data-book-2019.
About Generali Global Assistance
Generali Global Assistance (GGA) is a leading brand comprised of Travel Insurance & Assistance, Medical Risk & Home Care Management, Identity & Cyber Protection, as well as other care services. GGA is part of the Generali Group, which for over 190 years has provided peace of mind to its clients and their customers and is supported by more than 72,000 employees worldwide. GGA is proud to be the identity protection engine behind some of the biggest names in the financial and insurance industries, providing comprehensive identity & cyber protection to more than 165 million customers across 90+ countries. To learn more about Generali Global Assistance’s identity & cyber protection offerings, please visit www.irisidentityprotection.com. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.