AVIEWS is an international on-line community dedicated to a cooperative, grassroots information sharing effort to reduce the impact of malicious code (viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, Spyware) and other related vulnerabilities. Its members include anti-virus vendors, researchers, security experts, product testers, journalists, systems administrators, and a whole lot more besides. 

The Anti-Virus Information & Early Warning System (AVIEWS) grew out of the original AVIEN network. One of the early objectives of AVIEN was to ensure that everyone knew about threats before they became a major issue. Once the initial Early Warning System was organized, requests to sign up for it started to come in from people not meeting the AVIEN membership criteria. A vote was taken, and AVIEN created a dedicated service called the EWS.

In mid-2002, the EWS evolved into the AVIEWS, as a natural result of the growth in interest amongst members. The AVI-EWS is more than just an alerting system - it is the first real interactive Anti-Virus community which includes not only vendor representatives but also specialists from client organizations.