AV-Comparatives has released an update to their latest Retrospective Test (static detection of new/unknown malicious software) – May 2011. Twelve vendors are included in the report. Only two vendors achieved the Advanced Plus (three star rating). In order, they were Avira and Kaspersky.
The top four vendors for proactive detection of new malware were G Data, Eset, Avira, and Kaspersky.
Vendors declining to participate in this test were in alphabetical order, Avast, AVG Technologies, K7, McAfee, PC Tools, Symantec, Trend Micro and Web Root. Twelve is probably the lowest number of vendors tested recently by AV-Comparatives.
Av-Comparatives goes into great detail in their document as to why these vendors may have passed on participating on this particular test. Among the reasons: real life capabilities would not be adequately represented in the test due to the absence of (a) a live Internet connection or because URL blocking was not considered. There's always the "if you know you may not perform well in a specific test...." Go to page 4 of the report for additional details.
In order to get comparable results, AV-comparatives tested all products with the highest settings, unless there were advised otherwise by the vendors. In the cloud functionality, was not used during this test. To view the report, go to
http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_retro_may2011.pdf
AV-Comparatives is an Austrian Non-Profit-Organization, which provides independent Anti-Virus software tests free to the public. www.av-comparatives.org
Note that there are other testing organizations as well. Individuals and companies evaluating AV and Internet Security SW should also look at the others, at reviews, round-ups, and group tests performed by reputable testing organizations, and technology publications. For information on testing best practices, people can go to the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization website (AMTSO), www.amtso.org
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
AV-Comparatives Releases Preliminary Results For Their 2011 Whole Product Dynamic Test
AV-Comparatives has released their preliminary results through April 2011 of their Whole Product Dynamic Test. The companies with the top three products (preliminary results) are in order – Symantec, BitDefender and Eset. Avast in eighth, was the top free product. Seventeen companies were in the test. http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart2.php Results will be published in July. The latest revision for this test came out in April.
Notes for how the test was set up are available at http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/dyn/wpdt-general.pdf
In the August – November 2010 Whole Product Dynamic Test, F-Secure, Symantec, Avira, and Kaspersky had the top four products and received an advanced “three star" rating for the test. F-Secure fell to sixth and Avira to tenth in the preliminary Whole Product Dynamic Test for 2011.
About AV-Comparatives
AV-Comparatives is an Austrian Non-Profit-Organization. They provide independent Anti-Virus software tests free to the public. www.av-comparatives.org
Notes for how the test was set up are available at http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/dyn/wpdt-general.pdf
In the August – November 2010 Whole Product Dynamic Test, F-Secure, Symantec, Avira, and Kaspersky had the top four products and received an advanced “three star" rating for the test. F-Secure fell to sixth and Avira to tenth in the preliminary Whole Product Dynamic Test for 2011.
About AV-Comparatives
AV-Comparatives is an Austrian Non-Profit-Organization. They provide independent Anti-Virus software tests free to the public. www.av-comparatives.org
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Updata Partners to Acquire CA Technologies Internet Security Business Unit
On May 12, Computer Associates announced that they had entered into an agreement with Updata Partners, a technology-focused growth equity firm, to sell them the Internet Security Business Unit of CA Technologies. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110512-720864.html This transaction does not affect CA Technologies enterprise security business. This business is focused primarily on identity and access management software. The new company, marketing the security products sold by Computer Associates, will be called Total Defense, Inc.
While Computer Associate. remains a major enterprise security player, how good is/was their antivirus and internet security endpoint products?
CA’s endpoint solution did not appear in the Opswat Security Market Share Analysis Report. Symantec, AVG Technologies and Avast came in first through third, respectively in North America antivirus market share in this report. http://www.opswat.com/media/reports/MarketShareReportMarch2011.pdf
In Gartner’s December 2010 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, Computer Associates fell into the niche category.
Computer Associates Internet Security Suite 2011 failed to receive certification in av-test.orgs Q! 2011 test on Windows 7. They scored 2.0, 3.5, and 4.0, respectively on Protection, Repair, and Usability. http://www.av-test.org/certifications Their 2.0 score for protection was the lowest score among the more than twenty products tested.
Computer Associate’s business product had failed to receive a Virus BulletinVB100 award in three of the last seven tests they had entered. http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=39. Their consumer product was six for twelve in the last tests they had entered. http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=46
Their business endpoint solution scored around 60% on proactive detection and around 65% on reactive detection on Virus Bulletin’s October 2010 through April 2011 RAP test. This is not a stellar result. http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/rap-index.xml
Security products being retained by Computer Associates include products involved with cloud security, secure access, secure identity, secure information, and security management. http://www.ca.com/us/it-security-solutions.aspx
Candidates to go after CA’s endpoint business – Symantec, McAfee, Sophos, and Trend Micro immediately come to mind. They all have enterprise strength endpoint solutions. This is less the case for Sophos, but Sophos’ primary focus is the business marketplace.
Sophos recently purchased Astaro. Astaro has security solutions in the areas of security gateways, gateway extensions, management tools, and hosted services. http://www.astaro.com
It will be interesting to see if Total Defense is any more successful selling Computer Associates’ endpoint security products than Computer Associates has been.
Computer Associates is a member of the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization. www.amtso.org .
Updata Partners invests in market-leading software, internet, and business services companies. We concentrate on growth and technology as the central value drivers in our investments, and work closely with management to position businesses for breakout success. www.updatapartners.com
na zdraví and proost to Updata in their venture. afscheid
While Computer Associate. remains a major enterprise security player, how good is/was their antivirus and internet security endpoint products?
CA’s endpoint solution did not appear in the Opswat Security Market Share Analysis Report. Symantec, AVG Technologies and Avast came in first through third, respectively in North America antivirus market share in this report. http://www.opswat.com/media/reports/MarketShareReportMarch2011.pdf
In Gartner’s December 2010 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, Computer Associates fell into the niche category.
Computer Associates Internet Security Suite 2011 failed to receive certification in av-test.orgs Q! 2011 test on Windows 7. They scored 2.0, 3.5, and 4.0, respectively on Protection, Repair, and Usability. http://www.av-test.org/certifications Their 2.0 score for protection was the lowest score among the more than twenty products tested.
Computer Associate’s business product had failed to receive a Virus BulletinVB100 award in three of the last seven tests they had entered. http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=39. Their consumer product was six for twelve in the last tests they had entered. http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=46
Their business endpoint solution scored around 60% on proactive detection and around 65% on reactive detection on Virus Bulletin’s October 2010 through April 2011 RAP test. This is not a stellar result. http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/rap-index.xml
Security products being retained by Computer Associates include products involved with cloud security, secure access, secure identity, secure information, and security management. http://www.ca.com/us/it-security-solutions.aspx
Candidates to go after CA’s endpoint business – Symantec, McAfee, Sophos, and Trend Micro immediately come to mind. They all have enterprise strength endpoint solutions. This is less the case for Sophos, but Sophos’ primary focus is the business marketplace.
Sophos recently purchased Astaro. Astaro has security solutions in the areas of security gateways, gateway extensions, management tools, and hosted services. http://www.astaro.com
It will be interesting to see if Total Defense is any more successful selling Computer Associates’ endpoint security products than Computer Associates has been.
Computer Associates is a member of the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization. www.amtso.org .
Updata Partners invests in market-leading software, internet, and business services companies. We concentrate on growth and technology as the central value drivers in our investments, and work closely with management to position businesses for breakout success. www.updatapartners.com
na zdraví and proost to Updata in their venture. afscheid
Friday, May 13, 2011
Interop Las Vegas 2011, Best of Interop – IV
Traffic was good but not packed, at Interop Las Vegas on Wednesday. The Gigamon presentation was well attended over the course of the day. Their big giveaway was an Apple Airtouch.
“Virtual” seems to be the second work bubbling up at Interop Las Vegas, after the word “cloud”. It seems to be an unwritten requirement at the show.
Sound bites from some of the internet security vendors. ESET pushed their consecutive number of VB100 awards (and got testy when asked if awards and results more than three years old really made a difference). Test results they were showing were 1+ years old. Comodo was pleased with their survey results. GFI and Comodo both talked about how user interfaces were as important as “capture rates”. Trend Micro had their presence in the Cisco booth, talking about the Cisco ASA 5500 and their own content security software.
Watchguard mentioned their 2-year relationship with AVG Technologies and having AVG technology under the hood for their security appliances. Watchguard uses a different vendor for email gateway security.
The name of the game among a number of vendors was WAN acceleration. Secure web gateways were being shown on the floor as were NGFW’s, next generation firewalls.
On Wednesday, the energy level picked at 3 o’clock for the pub-crawl. Sizable amounts of alcohol seemed to be consumed.
The “vendor” party was held Wednesday evening. It had a sort of 80’s theme, and was held in Haze, one of the clubs at the new Aria Casino. It got crowded after 10. Some of the cocktail servers were channeling Devo with red flowerpots on their heads. Madonna songs played frequently.
The Best of Interop 2011
InformationWeek Analytics had 135 finalists for the Best of Interop awards. Below is a listing of the winners. For the complete article, a list of the finalists, and more information, go to http://www.bestofinterop.com/winners/
• Best of Interop (Overall) and Cloud Computing Category Winner - VMware - VMware vCenter Operations Standard 1.0
• Collaboration - Vidyo Inc. - VidyoMobile
• Data Center & Storage - Alcatel-Lucent – Alcatel-Lucent Data Center Switching Solution Blueprint
• Infrastructure - NEC Corporation – NEC ProgrammableFlow Switch
• Network Management, Monitoring and Testing - BreakingPoint Systems, Inc. - BreakingPoint FireStorm CTM
• Performance Optimization - Talari Networks - Mercury T750 APN Appliance
• Security - Barracuda Networks, Inc. - Barracuda Flex
• Wireless & Mobility - Citrix Systems - Citrix Receiver for the iPhone
• Best Start-Up - Ciphertex Data Security
You would have to say that traffic was overall, okay. Perhaps akin to that of people strolling along Claude Debussylaan. The lunches are probably better at Bolenius than inside the exhibition hall at Interop Las Vegas.
“Virtual” seems to be the second work bubbling up at Interop Las Vegas, after the word “cloud”. It seems to be an unwritten requirement at the show.
Sound bites from some of the internet security vendors. ESET pushed their consecutive number of VB100 awards (and got testy when asked if awards and results more than three years old really made a difference). Test results they were showing were 1+ years old. Comodo was pleased with their survey results. GFI and Comodo both talked about how user interfaces were as important as “capture rates”. Trend Micro had their presence in the Cisco booth, talking about the Cisco ASA 5500 and their own content security software.
Watchguard mentioned their 2-year relationship with AVG Technologies and having AVG technology under the hood for their security appliances. Watchguard uses a different vendor for email gateway security.
The name of the game among a number of vendors was WAN acceleration. Secure web gateways were being shown on the floor as were NGFW’s, next generation firewalls.
On Wednesday, the energy level picked at 3 o’clock for the pub-crawl. Sizable amounts of alcohol seemed to be consumed.
The “vendor” party was held Wednesday evening. It had a sort of 80’s theme, and was held in Haze, one of the clubs at the new Aria Casino. It got crowded after 10. Some of the cocktail servers were channeling Devo with red flowerpots on their heads. Madonna songs played frequently.
The Best of Interop 2011
InformationWeek Analytics had 135 finalists for the Best of Interop awards. Below is a listing of the winners. For the complete article, a list of the finalists, and more information, go to http://www.bestofinterop.com/winners/
• Best of Interop (Overall) and Cloud Computing Category Winner - VMware - VMware vCenter Operations Standard 1.0
• Collaboration - Vidyo Inc. - VidyoMobile
• Data Center & Storage - Alcatel-Lucent – Alcatel-Lucent Data Center Switching Solution Blueprint
• Infrastructure - NEC Corporation – NEC ProgrammableFlow Switch
• Network Management, Monitoring and Testing - BreakingPoint Systems, Inc. - BreakingPoint FireStorm CTM
• Performance Optimization - Talari Networks - Mercury T750 APN Appliance
• Security - Barracuda Networks, Inc. - Barracuda Flex
• Wireless & Mobility - Citrix Systems - Citrix Receiver for the iPhone
• Best Start-Up - Ciphertex Data Security
You would have to say that traffic was overall, okay. Perhaps akin to that of people strolling along Claude Debussylaan. The lunches are probably better at Bolenius than inside the exhibition hall at Interop Las Vegas.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Interop Las Vegas 2011 – III
It was a low-key day at Interop Las Vegas the first day the exhibition hall was open. One thinks that that this year’s Interop may be a bit slow when they have drawings for iPads at the keynote. The giveaway du jour at this year’s event is remains the iPad, similar to RSA San Francisco, several months ago.
Traffic on Interop Las Vegas exhibition floor seemed okay, though not stupendous. Rows began with 500, rather than 100. Interesting… Best tchotchke? A car giveaway is going on. The iPad giveaway seems to be fairly common. Shirts are not as prevalent as they once were.
McAfee put out a press release about their cloud security platform but were referring people to their parent company, Intel, to learn about it. Perhaps it was discussed during the presentations. Riverbed Technology and Akamai announced a partnership. Results of this partnership will not be seen until 2012. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/10/akamai_riverbed_cloud_optimizer/ . Trend Micro? No booth but they were talking about their cloud offering in the Cisco booth and will be giving a session on “The Evil Hack in the Sky, Cloud Security”, on Wednesday. Blue Coat Systems is leading three sessions, “The New Age of Wan Optimization” (Thursday), “Breakthrough Wan Technologies” (Wednesday), and “Cloud, Video and Internet: Redefining the Requirements for WAN Optimization” (Wednesday). Blue Coat also had a pair of press releases on Tuesday, “Blue Coat breaks the Barrier for Public Cloud Optimization” and “Blue Coat Defines Next Generation WAN Optimization”.
Workouts people could have at the show for prizes? Virtual boxing, putting, riding a mechanical bull, and racing miniature racecars.
Internet Security vendors ESET, Comodo, McAfee, and G Data were all within close proximity of one another on the floor. No barbs were being thrown. ESET had the largest booth and tallest employee. Comodo seemed to be talking partnerships.
If you had to pick one booth for having the hired booth staff that most epitomized Las Vegas? Securence.
Wednesday should be the busiest day on the show floor in the afternoon with the 3:00 to 5:00pm pub-crawl.
They keynote panel on Wednesday “How to Avoid Post Cloud Traumatic Stress Disorder”. Representatives from Citrix, Terremark Worldwide, and Rackspace Hosting will be on the panel. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/keynote-speakers.php
Traffic on Interop Las Vegas exhibition floor seemed okay, though not stupendous. Rows began with 500, rather than 100. Interesting… Best tchotchke? A car giveaway is going on. The iPad giveaway seems to be fairly common. Shirts are not as prevalent as they once were.
McAfee put out a press release about their cloud security platform but were referring people to their parent company, Intel, to learn about it. Perhaps it was discussed during the presentations. Riverbed Technology and Akamai announced a partnership. Results of this partnership will not be seen until 2012. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/10/akamai_riverbed_cloud_optimizer/ . Trend Micro? No booth but they were talking about their cloud offering in the Cisco booth and will be giving a session on “The Evil Hack in the Sky, Cloud Security”, on Wednesday. Blue Coat Systems is leading three sessions, “The New Age of Wan Optimization” (Thursday), “Breakthrough Wan Technologies” (Wednesday), and “Cloud, Video and Internet: Redefining the Requirements for WAN Optimization” (Wednesday). Blue Coat also had a pair of press releases on Tuesday, “Blue Coat breaks the Barrier for Public Cloud Optimization” and “Blue Coat Defines Next Generation WAN Optimization”.
Workouts people could have at the show for prizes? Virtual boxing, putting, riding a mechanical bull, and racing miniature racecars.
Internet Security vendors ESET, Comodo, McAfee, and G Data were all within close proximity of one another on the floor. No barbs were being thrown. ESET had the largest booth and tallest employee. Comodo seemed to be talking partnerships.
If you had to pick one booth for having the hired booth staff that most epitomized Las Vegas? Securence.
Wednesday should be the busiest day on the show floor in the afternoon with the 3:00 to 5:00pm pub-crawl.
They keynote panel on Wednesday “How to Avoid Post Cloud Traumatic Stress Disorder”. Representatives from Citrix, Terremark Worldwide, and Rackspace Hosting will be on the panel. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/keynote-speakers.php
Sunday, May 08, 2011
Interop Las Vegas 2011 - II
Attendees and vendors have started to flow in to Las Vegas for Interop Las Vegas 2011. Should have placed “something” on the Mavericks. Monday is the big set-up day for exhibitors. The exhibition part of Interop is Tuesday through part of Thursday with Thursday afternoon being when the “trading of the tchtotchkes” among vendors will occur. For those who haven’t tired of that yet.
In perusing titles of presentations to see what the key topics will be, “cloud” does appear to be one of them. Of course, having its own track does give cloud an advantage. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/cloud-computing.php .
The first keynote at Interop Las Vegas on Tuesday also points in the direct of cloud, cloud computing, and cloud security being hot topics. “Change the Rules of Networking to Enable the Cloud” is the topic by Hewlett Packard’s Dave Donatelli. Microsoft’s Zane Adams will be speaking on “Public Cloud: The Transformational Opportunities Ahead" on Tuesday. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/keynote-speakers.php .
Correction to previous blog. Symantec does not have a formal booth presence at Interop Las Vegas. Under Huawei Symantec, yes. http://www.huaweisymantec.com/en/ . Comodo, voted the top free Internet Security Suites in a decidedly unscientific poll by download.com will be present in booth 757. That’s 2/3 of a very popular number in Las Vegas. http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/03/comodo-internet-security-suite-tops.htm . The Czech Trade Promotion Agency has a booth presence at Interop Las Vegas to promote international trade and cooperation between Czech and foreign companies. Booth 1965-D.
No IPO (initial public offering) sharks seen today. The only visible sharks were the ones in the Mandalay Bay Shark Exhibit. The first Interop Las Vegas package arrived under the door Sunday evening. There will be more.
In perusing titles of presentations to see what the key topics will be, “cloud” does appear to be one of them. Of course, having its own track does give cloud an advantage. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/cloud-computing.php .
The first keynote at Interop Las Vegas on Tuesday also points in the direct of cloud, cloud computing, and cloud security being hot topics. “Change the Rules of Networking to Enable the Cloud” is the topic by Hewlett Packard’s Dave Donatelli. Microsoft’s Zane Adams will be speaking on “Public Cloud: The Transformational Opportunities Ahead" on Tuesday. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/keynote-speakers.php .
Correction to previous blog. Symantec does not have a formal booth presence at Interop Las Vegas. Under Huawei Symantec, yes. http://www.huaweisymantec.com/en/ . Comodo, voted the top free Internet Security Suites in a decidedly unscientific poll by download.com will be present in booth 757. That’s 2/3 of a very popular number in Las Vegas. http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/03/comodo-internet-security-suite-tops.htm . The Czech Trade Promotion Agency has a booth presence at Interop Las Vegas to promote international trade and cooperation between Czech and foreign companies. Booth 1965-D.
No IPO (initial public offering) sharks seen today. The only visible sharks were the ones in the Mandalay Bay Shark Exhibit. The first Interop Las Vegas package arrived under the door Sunday evening. There will be more.
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Interop Las Vegas 2011
“How is a $20 bill like a shirt (during Interop Las Vegas)? Neither one gets changed the whole week.” So complained a waitress about the lack of generosity of some of the attendees during Interop Las Vegas. More than one individual may learn that seeing the Matt Damon, Kevin Spacey movie, “21” does not make one a card counter. Hopefully, people won’t get confused that “The Lion King” has actors portraying lions and other African mammals while “Cheetah’s” has cougars.
Interop Las Vegas, smaller in size from its peak from the .com bubble burst a decade ago, remains one of the pre-eminent technology trade shows in North America. Less focused than RSA San Francisco 2011, they will still attract a sizeable crowd during its run, May 8 through 12th http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/
Over 350 companies and around 15k attendees will be taking over Mandalay Bay and some of the other casino/hotels during the week of April 8 at Interop Las Vegas. At, RSA in San Francisco, presentations had to include the words “cloud” and “virtual” in order to get any attention. It will be interesting to see what the buzz phrases are during Interop.
The security track at Interop Las Vegas will be Information Security and Risk Management Other tracks include - Cloud, Data Center, Enterprise 2.0, Future of Work, Networking, Storage, United Communication, Video Virtualization, Wireless and Mobility.
While Interop Las Vegas has much more breadth compared to RSA, there will be a number of security companies attending. These include companies involved in internet security, Symantec, McAfee, Barracuda, for example. Sophos and Kaspersky will not be in attendance. The only “avast” that will be heard will be at Treasure Island at the other end of the strip. To see a list of companies whose foci include security http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/2011/exhibitor-list/#products-services-tab
The focus of this blog during Interop week is still TBD. It will not be on IPO, initial public offering, or loans. The best tchotchkes and the companies giving them out may be listed. Companies who are the most aggressive in hiring “las Vegas” type booth help may be listed. Interesting talks may be covered. Some of the keynotes may be discussed. As always, there are parties at night. Much above avg parties. After all, this is Vegas, Baby! Speakers from Cisco, IBM, Citrix, Internet pioneer Vincent Cerf, and others. No Bill Clinton like RSA had. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/keynote-speakers.php
What happens in Vegas.....
Interop Las Vegas, smaller in size from its peak from the .com bubble burst a decade ago, remains one of the pre-eminent technology trade shows in North America. Less focused than RSA San Francisco 2011, they will still attract a sizeable crowd during its run, May 8 through 12th http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/
Over 350 companies and around 15k attendees will be taking over Mandalay Bay and some of the other casino/hotels during the week of April 8 at Interop Las Vegas. At, RSA in San Francisco, presentations had to include the words “cloud” and “virtual” in order to get any attention. It will be interesting to see what the buzz phrases are during Interop.
The security track at Interop Las Vegas will be Information Security and Risk Management Other tracks include - Cloud, Data Center, Enterprise 2.0, Future of Work, Networking, Storage, United Communication, Video Virtualization, Wireless and Mobility.
While Interop Las Vegas has much more breadth compared to RSA, there will be a number of security companies attending. These include companies involved in internet security, Symantec, McAfee, Barracuda, for example. Sophos and Kaspersky will not be in attendance. The only “avast” that will be heard will be at Treasure Island at the other end of the strip. To see a list of companies whose foci include security http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/2011/exhibitor-list/#products-services-tab
The focus of this blog during Interop week is still TBD. It will not be on IPO, initial public offering, or loans. The best tchotchkes and the companies giving them out may be listed. Companies who are the most aggressive in hiring “las Vegas” type booth help may be listed. Interesting talks may be covered. Some of the keynotes may be discussed. As always, there are parties at night. Much above avg parties. After all, this is Vegas, Baby! Speakers from Cisco, IBM, Citrix, Internet pioneer Vincent Cerf, and others. No Bill Clinton like RSA had. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/keynote-speakers.php
What happens in Vegas.....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
