AV-Comparatives Mobile Security Review – August 2015

Austria based AV-Comparatives has released their Mobile Security Review -  August 2015.  This is quite an extensive document, providing a comprehensive review of sixteen security packages running on Android.  The document runs  seventy pages. Ten of the sixteen products are free.  Almost 2400 malicious applications were used in the test.

Mobile security is crucial for both home users (who are constantly checking their mobile) as well as businesses. The BYOD camel has entered its nose into the intranet tent and it’s not going to be removed.  Mobile devices are a major weak spot for network access, as well as a place where data can be accessed. Data stored on the phone can be stolen, as well.    The Global BYOD market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 25.32% from 2014 to 2019 according to a   new market research report published on September 15.    whattech.com market research report  . These devices need to be protected.

AV-Comparatives, while giving each of the products an approved rating, nonetheless found that the there was overall a “significant overall improvement” in the standard of the products.

Four of the  products provided 100% protection:   Trend Micro with no false alarms, BitDefender,   G Data (both with three  false alarms) and Antiy (with five) rounded out the top four.

AVG Technologies  offering trailed all products tested with 98.4% protection and 4 false alarms. Just above AVG Technologies was Sophos with 99.2% protection and 0 false alarms. 

For those who are interested in a tabular deep dive comparison, the first table compares which of 75 permissions are in each of the products. No product had all of them.

The Feature List table compares the products on over forty attributes, broken down into categories including Anti-Malware, Anti-Theft, Anti-Spam, Parental Control, Authentication, Additional Features, and Support. McAfee Mobile Security lacked the fewest, missing only three.  This product drained the mobile battery a bit more than the others did.

A great deal of work went into this document. The Mobile Security Review can be found free (!) at

http: //www.av-comparatives.org/mobile-security/  .  Complete copyright and disclaimer information is contained in the document and more information about test procedures is on the website.

AVC UnDroid Analyser

AV-Comparatives (www.av-comparatives.com) has also introduced a slick malware analysis tool, the UnDroid Analyser that is free to users. It’s a static system for detecting suspected Android malware and adware and generating some statistics about it. Check it out at http://www.av-comparatives.org/avc-analyzer  .

Addendum

 View AV-Comparatives September Malware Removal Test at

Malware Removal Test - September 2015