AV-Comparatives on Demand Detection of Malicious Software – March 2012

AV-Comparatives (www.av-comparatives.org ) has released their On Demand Detection of Malicious Software March 2012 report. Twenty vendor antivirus (internet security) products were tested. Symantec was not tested as they wished to pick and choose which tests to participate in. Over 291,000 samples were used in the testing. The AMTSO (Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization at www.amtso.org) would be pleased! Eleven products received the top rating of Advanced+, or three stars.

The top four products (incentive to download the report) were from

1. G Data
2. Avira
3. Kaspersky
4. Sophos

These products also had the overall top detection rates, in the same order with G Data the best at 99.7%. The vendors with the lowest detection rates from lowest "up" were Microsoft and AhnLab.

Only one product, from AhnLab, received the lowest rating, “Tested”.

AV-comparatives also tested for false positives. The top five products were from

1. Microsoft
2. Eset
3. BitDefender/F-Secure (tied for 3rd)
4. BullGuard

Microsoft actually had zero false positives. The false positive cone of shame award goes to Webroot with 428 false positives. Only they and Trend Micro had more than 80 false positives. Something must be going on with how the Webroot scan engine is evaluating samples.

In alphabetical order, internet security vendors in the test: AhnLab, Avast, AVG Technologies, Avira, BitDefender, BullGuard, eScan, ESET, F-Secure, Fortinet, G Data, GFI, Kaspersky, McAfee, Microsoft, Panda, PC Tools, Sophos, Trend Micro, and Webroot.

It’s worthwhile to go to the web site, download and read the whole report to gain insights on the AV-comparatives test methodology. As well as to view the complete rankings! The end of the year report is a good one to read in conjunction with this report as well, since there are details on most of the products that were in this latest report. Congrats to the top performers.

About AV-Comparatives

AV-Comparatives is an Austrian Non-Profit-Organization, which provides independent Anti-Virus software tests free to the public.

Go to the AV-comparatives website for complete details about the organization, the many tests they perform, and to download copies of test reports.

www.av-comparatives.org