There has been a significant increase in the amount of “fake news” and information regarding Covid19 vaccination. So it’s imperative for people to be able to access genuine content from reputable sources.
Cork based company Trend Micro, a global leader in cyber security, has launched a new tool for identifying fraud and misinformation.
This free resource is designed to help users protect themselves against online security threats, including privacy violations, false claims, and spreaders of misinformation.
Trend Micro Check was launched in response to the avalanche of misinformation increasingly published online. This is an area Trend Micro has been researching for several years.
The useful tool includes a new feature from NewsGuard which provides trust ratings for thousands of news sites.
“Our society is facing one of its greatest challenges today in the publication and re-sharing of misinformation,” said Lynette Owens, founder and global director of Trend Micro’s Internet Safety for Kids and Families (ISKF) program.
“We hope this latest tool will offer users an additional safety net and supplemental resources to stay safe online, which will further provide a basis for them to evaluate what they’re reading online and whether the sites they’re visiting can be trusted or not.”
The tool’s security and privacy features are particularly important. According to a report from Federal Trade Commission (FTC), there have been 118,182 fraud reports in the US in 2020 so far, causing $160.75 million in loss for cyber fraud victims.
Online scams are even more prevalent this year, as fraudsters seek to capitalize on the pandemic and the resulting surge in e-commerce.
Trend Micro Check has four key elements:
Security Check
This feature uses Trend Micro’s world-leading threat intelligence to check if a website/URL is fraudulent or infected with malware.
Privacy Check
Makes use of Trend Micro’s ID Security service to see if users’ email addresses have appeared for sale on the dark web, enabling them to change passwords accordingly.
Fact Check
Leverages the Google Fact Check API to surface information from third-party fact-checking sites, helping users to ascertain the trustworthiness of an article, post, picture or audio message.
News Reputation Check
Partners with NewsGuard to provide information about the trustworthiness of news and information websites based on nine basic – apolitical criteria of journalistic practice relating to credibility and transparency.
“Our human intelligence team is pleased to partner with Trend Micro as it takes this important step to root out the online misinformation creating a global ‘infodemic,'” said Steven Brill, NewsGuard co-CEO.
“NewsGuard’s addition to Trend Micro Check will give people the context they need to decide which news sources to trust and which to take with a grain of salt.”
Unlike current market offerings, Trend Micro Check can perform real-time total detection all in one place, giving consumers the ability to act quickly based on the results.
Over the past two-and-a-half years, Trend Micro Check has been used 1.35 billion times by users to combat misinformation and fraud in Japan and Taiwan.
This intuitive tool is available for FREE, allowing users easy access to news transparency.
To find out more, visit, check.trendmicro.com.