AV-Comparatives Real World Protection Test – August to November 2015

Kaspersky and BitDefender topped twenty companies in AV-Comparatives Real World Protection Test, August to November 2015. These companies finished in the top two, receiving three stars. Both had only one compromised file. Six other companies received three stars over the test period.  Eight of the twenty companies in the test received two stars. Default settings were used for all products.

Trivia question – which North America based malware company received three stars?

Four companies merit the Hall of Shame award for the period, garnering one or zero stars. From the bottom up, ThreatTrack Vipre, Lavasoft, Quick Heat and BullGuard.   Banished to a timeout corner   for being in triple digits for wrongly blocked files – Mcafee, ThreatTrack, and Lavasoft.

An informative graphic in the report depicts the range of protection over the four-month period for each product. The top products were extremely consistent, which is what you would want in a security solution.  The bottom products, less so. 

Not all results are being provided because there is no charge for the report. It can be downloaded at http://www.av-comparatives.org/dynamic-tests/. You can also learn more about the test methodology in the fourteen-page report.  The products tested ranged from free antivirus to internet security suites.  Kudos to AV-Comparatives for detailing some of the statistics methodologies used in compiling their report. Your eyes won’t glaze over as you read about this.

As always, the top products may not be top in terms of number of “likes” they’ve received on their respective Facebook pages.  In  the denouement, should one give more weight to independent third party testing, or a fan club?

An interesting article to read by Adam Winn at San Francisco based OPSWAT,  (www.opswat.com) Sorry Symantec - Antivirus is Not Dead .  Today’s antivirus/malware protection utilizes more than just pattern files and heuristics.

Hall of Shame and timeout corners are not part of AV-Comparatives’ formal designations. You can learn about the organization at www.av-comparatives.org

The trivia question answer – none.  McAfee and Fortinet received two stars.

McAfee Going Away as a Brand?

Will 2016 by the  year that the McAfee brand will disappear from the public consciousness, or as a SKU, anyway?  If so, it will be the end of an era that began with McAfee’s founding in 1987. 

About McAfee

Wikipedia has published  a history of McAfee. Some of the below has not made it into that history (or was edited out).

At one point in time, during its growth phase, McAfee actively sold off firms that it did not see as being among the top three in their niche.  One of their sales (when they had the Network Associates name), was the data encryption company PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) which they had originally acquired in 1997, to  some of the founders of PGP. This was probably a whoops. In  2010, Symantec purchased this company, the same year Intel acquired McAfee.

To encourage use of their desktop product, McAfee aggressively gave away trial versions (remember CD’s?) of their endpoint product, causing some of their competitors to refer to the company as “McAfree”.

In the late 1990's, Trend Micro sued McAfee (and ultimately other, for patent infringement) "We are not just in it for the royalty," said Trend Micro's general counsel Bob Lowe. "Our main goal is having the products be prevented from being sold."  Nonetheless, the suit ended with a cross-licensing agreement.

The “rumor mill” had it that one McAfee executive used to keep a firearm in his desk.

In April 2003, after purchasing Intrusion Prevention company Intruvert for $100M, the company’s repositioned itself on its website as an intrusion prevention company. In fact, Barron’s in 2005 referred to McAfee as a leader in intrusion prevention  

On January 4, 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against McAfee for overstating its 1998–2000 net revenue by $622 million. Without admitting any wrongdoing, McAfee simultaneously settled the complaint, and agreed to pay a $50 million penalty and rework its accounting practices.  

Several executives left McAfee in the mid 2000’s in part because of an investigation related to back dating of options. The execs were exonerated.  The  CEO resigned at this time, for other reasons, and, went outside the company for a new CEO.

On August 19, 2010, Intel announced that it would buy McAfee for $48 a share in a deal valued at $7.68 billion. There was some push back from the European Union as they felt this deal would give Intel an unfair advantage in desktop security,  but the deal did go through.

On January 6, 2014, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced during the Consumer Electronics Show the name change from McAfee Security to Intel Security.  He stated that the McAfee red shield logo would remain and the firm would continue to operate as a wholly owned Intel subsidiary.

On the consumer side over the years, McAfee has been battling Symantec on the paid front. Market share? Around 12th in the October OPSWAT market share report. Mixed results in AV-Comparatives testing. They haven't been tested by Virus Bulletin in several years. 

Jumping Forward to 2015

October 28, 1915- Search Cloud Security - Intel Pulls Plug on McAfee SaaS Security Products

Intel Security will stop selling McAfee SaaS Endpoint and SaaS Email Protection and Archiving. Although new sales will stop in 2016. Existing customers can continue renewing their subscription and receiving support until Jan. 11, 2019, Intel Security said in its notices. Depending on certain subscription types, limited support will be available for some services until 2021.

Search Cloud Security Article

October 29 - 2015 Channelnomics - McAfee  Brand Will Stay for Now

McAfee as a brand still holds a lot of equity for Intel Security, Lisa Matherly, and Intel VP of worldwide partner programs, marketing & operations, told Channelnomics at Intel Security's Focus 15 event in Las Vegas. 

"There is a lot of equity in the McAfee brand and there is some association with security with the Intel brand, but not as strong as the McAfee brand," Matherly pointed out. "So that's really what we're trying to do - bridge that and introduce the Intel security brand, start associating the security there, but also leverage what we have in the McAfee brand for the product portfolio. She added that the future of the McAfee brand is uncertain now and will be driven by the market.

  McAfee Brand to Stay, for Now at Least?

November 5, 2015 - Intel Security Confirms Divestiture of McAfee NGFW, Firewall Enterprise Businesses in Memo to Partners 

In a memo to partners, Intel Security confirmed its divestiture of its McAfee Next-Generation Firewall and McAfee Firewall Enterprise businesses to Raytheon/Websense

From CRN

So, pieces are being sold. Other pieces are being end of lifed. Other pieces are being retained though the word "McAfee" appears to be going away. 

Other Firms to the Rescue

 Since these announcements,  Mimecast and Sophos have leapt to the rescue, offering special pricing for users of some McAfee products.

Mimecast - You need a new solution offering both similar features and a smooth migration path – without worrying about a financial burden.

Mimecast Promo

Sophos Promo - We Can Help Today. McAfee retired its email security and archiving products, and now you are scrambling to find an alternative. However, we have good news. Sophos’ solutions will help you turn an annoying replacement project into an upgrade opportunity. And we can do it right now.

 Sophos Promo

Hold, hold onto those McAfee CD’s, tee shirts, and trade show giveaways. It may be the end of an era but they may be worth something on eBay.

One question (beyond the scope of this piece), is whether Intel should have even purchased McAfee in 2010  years ago? They are keeping some of the components. At the time (and even currently) large companies are purchasing jumping onto the security bandwagon to strengthen their security offerings or get into the business.

   

Also beyond the scope of this piece is any discussion of John McAfee, McAfee’s founder,  who filed to run for president in early September!

NBC News - John McAfee to Run for President?

Another discussion - worthy of it's own post, will be the future of desktop/endpoint security since pundits' views on this cross the spectrum as to the solution's viability.

AV Comparatives Performance Test – Impact of Security Software on System Performance Report October 2015

AV Comparatives has released their Performance Test – Impact of Security Software on System Performance Report. Nineteen products were tested. Eleven products received three stars.  The top three products were in order,  Avira, Avast, and Kaspersky.   Congrats to these three!  Products tested were a combination of free and paid, antivirus, and internet security suites.  The hall of shame award for this test  goes to Fortinet and ThreatTrack; both received one star.  Windows 10 systems were used during the test.

Note that this test doesn’t test  an ability to protect against malware. For that, you would have to look at other tests by AV-Comparatives. In a tie-breaking situation between a few products that performed equally well at stopping and removing malware, the performance test could be a tiebreaker. 

To access the and download the report:  http://www.av-comparatives.org/performance-tests/ 

www.AV-Comparatives.org  used  the performance testing suite PC Mark 8 Professional, to measure system impact for the  test.

Av-Comparatives – Review of IT Security Suites for Small Business – September 2015

Av-Comparatives has released their Review of IT Security Suites for Small Business   - September 2015.  The review   examines security suites suitable for a company running either the Foundation or the Enterprise edition of Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2. The Foundation version is suitable for small companies with up to 15 users (from the Microsoft website), while the Essentials version allows an additional ten users. The report considers products for a network of up to 25 client PCs, with one file server/domain controller.

AV-Comparatives’ review covered only the essential everyday tasks needed in all networks. However some products have additional features and could be used for significantly bigger networks reviewed. Products in the Review of IT Security Suites are:

Bitdefender Endpoint GravityZone, ESET Remote Administrator, F-Secure Protection Service For Business, G Data Antivirus Business, Kaspersky Small Office Security, McAfee SaaS Endpoint Protection, Sophos Endpoint Security and Control Cloud, Symantec Endpoint Protection, and Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Services.  Symantec! They’re here.  They are not present on many of AV-Comparatives’ reviews (companies cannot selectively opt out of a subset of core reviews; it’s all or none).

The document itself runs around 90 pages.  Each product is given a comprehensive overview.  Major categories that AV-Comparatives looked at include:

Supported OS, Documentation, Management Console (cloud based, server based, and virtual appliance) Respective endpoint protection programs for Windows and Mac OS clients, Window Server Protection Software, and Summary

All of the products received the AV-Comparatives’ Approved Business Award.

The advantages of a document like this include, the depth of comparison, the same features/functionality are looked at for each product, and the review was done by a known test organization. A company would not have the time (and for a Small Business, the expertise) to go into this depth for nine products.  Companies looking to replace their current product being used should find this report a valuable (at no charge!) resource.

For those who like to compare products on a feature grid, suffice it to say that AV-Comparatives provides a sizeable (Multiple fingers and toes! Approximately 100 rows) grid as part of the document. This document is more than adequate for you to select one product for your environment or select a short list for evaluation.

The document can be downloaded at:    

   http://www.av-comparatives.org/corporate-reviews/

The “Death of Antivirus Software is Greatly Exaggerated”, as written in an article in CSO Online (and others).  You still need protection from these threats, whether the protection is provided from software on the device or from the cloud. Greatly Exaggerated

 Av-Comparatives has a fantastic library of test documents. The site organization scores high on surveys.  Check them out.  Other documents are available for download from the AV-comparatives website (www.av-comparatives.org ) website.

 

 

AV-Comparatives Releases Results of May Real World Protection Test. Testing Firm Now ISO 9001 Certified

Austria based AV-Comparatives has released the results of their May “Real World Protection Test”.  Bitdefender, the best anti-malware company you may have never heard of topped all companies, with a 100% score and zero false positives.  Only Panda also blocked 100%.  This was with their free product!  Avira had the top score among the largest freemium vendors (with their internet security suite), blocking 99.5%.

At the other end of the spectrum, Korea based AhnLab ranked at the bottom of products tested, blocking only 87.5% of the threats (ouch), the only company tested at less than 90%.  McAfee had the most false positives, with 16.  The trend of market share leaders not being market performance leaders continued, as both McAfee, and Trend Micro finished in the bottom 1/3 of companies tested.  Symantec has opted out of being tested by AV-Comparatives (a disservice to customers, IMHO).  Man-up, SYMC.

The products included in the test were a mix of anti-virus, internet security suites, paid, and free products.  The exact versions used are listed in the report and on the website.

The Real World Protection Test is just one of a number of tests AV-Comparatives performs over the course of the year.  They can be downloaded from the company web-site http://www.av-comparatives.org/

AV-Comparatives’ Real-World Protection Test framework has been recognized by the “Standortagentur Tirol” with the 2012 “Cluster Award for innovation in computer science” and by the “Austrian Government” with the 2013 “Constantinus Award.

AV-Comparatives Receives ISO 9001 Certification

AV-Comparatives is now an ISO 9001 certified organization.  AV-Comparatives received the certificate from TÜV Austria for their management system for the scope: “Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software” in early June.

"ISO 9001:2008 specifies requirements for a quality management system where an organization needs to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide product that meets customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.  The organization has to  enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system, including processes for continual improvement of the system and the assurance of conformity to customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements."  ISO 9001 is currently under revision with the final release of the new standards due by the end of 2015.

About AV-Comparatives

AV-Comparatives is an independent not-for-profit organization offering systematic testing that checks whether security software, such as PC/Mac-based antivirus products and mobile security solutions, lives up to its promises.  Using one of the largest sample collections worldwide, it creates a real-world environment for truly accurate testing.  AV-Comparatives offers freely accessible results to individuals, news organizations, and scientific institutions.  Certification by AV-Comparatives provides an official seal of approval for software performance.  

Palo Alto Networks, Check Point top Products in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Network Firewalls - 2014

As is probably no big surprise to those in the industry and those purchasing network security products, Palo Alto Networks (PAN) and Check Point had the top rated products in the 2014 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Network Firewalls.  The report came out in April.  These are the only two companies in the Leaders Quadrant, with Palo Alto Networks leading on Completeness of Vision and Check Point for Ability to Execute. Fortinet and Cisco were the closest to the in the Challengers quadrant.   The report, ID:G00258296 is available on the PAN web site for those who register. http://connect.paloaltonetworks.com/gartner-mq-2014

Palo Alto Networks pretty much was the originator of the acronym NGFW or Next Generation Firewall, and PAN and Check Point Software Technologies companies compete for many of the same customers. Last year, PAN   introduced their Wildfire infrastructure, enabling the PAN firewall to detect and stop Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) This is offered to customers via the public cloud or can be deployed as a private cloud.   Gartner also wrote that PAN    was consistently on most NGFW competitive shortlists.  PANS Advanced Persistent Threat Solution   was not among those recently tested by NSS Labs in their April Breach Detection Study.   

Check Point was cited by Gartner as being the market share leader in firewall installed base. They offer an extensive line of security appliances and were also delivered the industry’s first flexible, extensible security architecture, the Check Point Software Blade Architecture.   Check Point’s Anti-Bot Software Blade detects bot-infected machines, prevents bot damages by blocking bot C&C communications. This isn’t a comprehensive Advanced Persistent Threat Solution, but it helps protect the network.

PAN’s product portfolio isn’t quite as extensive Check Point’s,   they do offer a virtualized firewall platform in addition to the more traditional appliance offering, threat subscriptions for URL filtering, and a management platform.  

Fortinet was rated a Challenger by Gartner. They stated Fortinet was “not often beating Leaders in mainstream enterprise selections based on features and vision, nor causing Leaders to react to Fortinet.”

Cisco was rated a Challenger as well.  Gartner didn’t seem them displacing   PAN nor Check Point on the basis of visions or features.  They saw Cisco winning firewall business through channel “execution and “aggressive discounting”.

Juniper Networks completed the trio of companies in the Challenger quadrant.  McAfee was a leader in the Niche quadrant.

Offerings from F5, Arkoon-Netasq, and AhnLab were the furthest down and to the left in the Magic Quadrant.

Check out the complete report.  For an assessment of all sixteen vendors in the report. Some names you’re familiar with may be missing due to consolidation. Gartner also has some brief information on why virtualized firewall penetration is a less than two percent.  “Security-minded enterprises are also rightly skeptical of running firewalls within a hypervisor that is between the threat and the firewall,” according to Gartner. 

 Regarding the Leaders quadrant from the Gartner Magic Quadrant Endpoint report - “A leading vendor isn't a default choice for every buyer, and clients should not assume that they must buy only from vendors in the Leaders quadrant.  Some clients believe that Leaders are spreading their efforts too thinly and aren't pursuing clients' special needs.”

For more details on the Magic Quadrant and how it is created, read “Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes: How Gartner Evaluates Vendors within a Market”.     Sometimes a leader is not the best solution for a particular customer.  Despite that, you will see many   presentations where the vendor uses being in the Leaders quadrant   as a reason to buy from that particular vendor.  Who would have thought that they would do that? www.gartner.com

Some of NSS Labs reports are available at no charge.  www.nsslabs.com

craig kensek

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms- 2013

 Gartner  has  released  their 2013 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms,   ID:G00247705.  Five performers are in the Leaders Quadrant.  Their approximate order in the report: McAfee, Symantec, Kaspersky, Trend Micro, and Sophos.  This is a little bit of a switch from 2012 when the order was Symantec, McAfee, Sophos, Kaspersky, and Trend Micro Microsoft, like in the 2012 report, was the only company in the Challenger portion of the grid.   Analysts for the report - Peter Firstbrook, John Girard, and Neil MacDonald.  Congrats to all in this portion of the quadrant.

Probably not so pleased with the report are Threatrack Security, Beyond Trust, and Check Point Software Technologies.  These were    the bottom three in the Niche Players portion of the quadrant.  Beyond Trust was the overall lowest in the quadrant with respect to ability to execute.  Check Point Software  slipped from the Visionary portion of the grid to this quadrant.  Not good.

McAfee continues its assimilation into Intel, who purchased them a couple of years ago.  The McAfee name will disappear and become   Intel Security.  Kaspersky continues their assault on Trend Micro. Sophos is aggressively expanding their business offerings, has revamped their channel program, http://channelnomics.com/2014/02/18/sophos-revamps-simplifies-partner-program/  remaining (and probably will remain)  a business focused security vendor.

The   Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms report is available for purchase on their website.  Some vendors such as Symantec have it available on their website for those who register.

Regarding the Leaders quadrant from the Gartner Magic Quadrant Endpoint report - “However, a leading vendor isn't a default choice for every buyer, and clients should not assume that they must buy only from vendors in the Leaders quadrant.  Some clients believe that Leaders are spreading their efforts too thinly and aren't pursuing clients' special needs.”

For more details on the Magic Quadrant and how it is created, read “Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes: How Gartner Evaluates Vendors within a Market”.     Sometimes a leader is not the best solution for a particular customer.  Despite that, you will see many   presentations where the vendor uses being in the Leaders quadrant   as a reason to buy from that particular vendor.  www.gartner.com

To see a blog on last year’s results - http://kensek.blogspot.com/2013/01/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-endpoint.html

ckensek on Twitter.

  

A Lighter Look at RSA 2013 San Francisco

RSA 2013 San Francisco was well attended.  There were over twenty thousand attendees.  Over 350 vendors participated in the trade show portion AhnLab owned the view from outside Moscone Center with flags promoting  their presence at the event.  Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the featured keynote speaker, the last day of event.   You know you’ve been in security for awhile when you go to one booth and recognize a few people that you’ve worked with, at different companies.

Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), seemed to be the acronym du jour for RSA 2013 San Francisco this year.  There were a number of firewall vendors, as well.  Websense had a huge wall touting the results of a Miercom   test with their Web Security Gateway Anywhere appliance, versus a handful of competitors.  In looking at 2.26 million URLs, they identified and blocked over 132 thousand bad URLs.  The least effective result was achieved by FireEye who blocked 171 with their Web MPS 1300 appliance.  The report is available on the Websense web site.  Other companies in the test included Blue Coat, Cisco IronPort, and McAfee.  Germany had a pavilion with a number of companies.  China did as well.  Huawei,  from China, had a large booth in the corner of the exhibition hall.  No 60 Minute people were around.  The usual antivirus and internet security vendors were present; Trend Micro, McAfee, Symantec, Sophos, and ESET were there. NSS was distributing their latest firewall report.  WatchGuard was probably not pleased with the result.

However, enough about security.  What were the tchotchkes like?  Dentists appeared to sponsor many of the giveaways, since candy was rampant.  The usual pens and stress balls were all over the place.  More than a handful of booths were giving away quite nice water bottles.  Three motorcycles, including a Harley Davidson, were being given away.  The event was lighter than usual on tee shirts this year, but they were available at the Check Point, Kaspersky, AhnLab, and Trend Micro booths.  .  AhnLab had a slot machine with the grand prize being $10 thousand.  Light sabers were being given away.  A wookie and Leia (cinnabon hairstyle and all) were hanging in one booth along with the white storm troopers.   

There was a huge line for autographed copies of Kevin Mitnick’s latest book, The Art of Deception.  Likewise for Bruce Schneier and his latest book.  A $35 mini speaker was another giveaway at one booth, a company branded Rubik’s cube at another.  One company gave away a 3 feet long remote control helicopter at the end of each presentation.  Very cool.  Copious amounts of food and alcohol was served Monday evening during the two-hour preview to the show.  One company had a box to put one of your tchotchkes in.  A lucky person was going to win the whole box.  Seinfeld’s “no soup for you” guy was at the show for people wanting to have their picture taken with him.  Kaspersky himself showed up at the Kaspersky booth.  The Kaspersky  booth was serving most excellent kaspertinis at the show on Wednesday.  Bravilna.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Security - 2012

Addendum - Information about the 2013 report is at http://kensek.blogspot.com/2014/02/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-endpoint.html

Gartner has released their 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Security, ID:G00239869.  Five performers are in the leaders quadrant.  Their approximate order in the 2012 report:  Symantec, McAfee, Sophos, Kaspersky, and Trend Micro.  Microsoft, who has built up a large endpoint market share in the last couple of years with their free consumer endpoint product, was the only company in the Challenger portion of the grid for the 2012 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection.  Congrats to these five companies.  Analysts for the report - Peter Firstbrook, John Girard, and Neil MacDonald.

Always interesting goings on with firms in the world of security, even those in the leaders portion of the magic quadrant. Symantec replaced CEO Enrique Salem with Tom Bennett in July.

Companies in  the 2011 leaders portion of the quadrant were  Symantec, McAfee, Sophos, Trend Micro, and Kaspersky. http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/02/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-endpoint.html

Always interesting goings on with firms in the world of security.  Palo Alto Networks "finally" went public  in 2012 and had a nice first few days pop in their stock price. More traditional firewall companies started releasing Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW's).  Trend Micro was named a leader in the email content security arena by Forrester. Symantec replaced CEO Enrique Salem with Tom Bennett in July. Kaspersky and Trend switched spots as Kaspersky continues their mission to surpass Trend Micro in everything end point.   Symantec, you may want to appear in those AV-comparatives.org security tests, now ;). Once Kaspersky passes Trend Micro.....

Beyond Trust was the overall lowest in the quadrant with respect to ability to execute.  They purchased eEye in the first half of 2012.  One of the cautions raised by Gartner about Check Point (in the visionary portion of the quadrant) was Check Point's dependence on Kaspersky Lab's engine and signature updates continues to challenge enterprise buyers to differentiate it from Kaspersky Lab (note, ck – not a technological weakness, just a differentiator weakness).

There is a combination of seventeen companies in this report.  The minimum functionality   to appear:

• Detection and cleaning of malware (for example, viruses, spyware, rootkits, Trojans, worms), a personal firewall, and HIPS for servers and PCs
• Centralized management, configuration and reporting capabilities for all products evaluated in this research, sufficient to support companies of at least 5,000 geographically dispersed endpoints
• Global service and support organizations to support products

A good read for people is “Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes: How Gartner Evaluates Vendors Within a Market” http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=154752   Sometimes a  leader isn’t the best solution for a particular customer.  Despite that, there are many presentations where the vendor uses being in the leaders portion   as a reason to buy from that particular vendor. 

The   Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Security 2012 is available from Gartner.  Some of the vendors license rights to provide it to customers, as well.

Slowing Revenues and Declining Income at Trend Micro Helping Kaspersky in Efforts to Reach Number Three

In the paid desktop antivirus and internet security world, Symantec and McAfee have generally been recognized as the 800-pound gorillas with Trend Micro trailing at number three.  Kaspersky founder Eugene Kaspersky has expressed a strong  desire to catch up to Trend Micro.  In fact, Moscow based Kaspersky was listed   as one of only 5 global security companies in the “Leaders” portion of the Gartner 2012 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms.

Disappointing  Q3 Results for Trend

Trend Micro did not have a great Q3.  First, the good news.  On the non-financial front - The company was issued over a dozen patents in Q3.  They announced   new mobile solutions.  They rolled out their 2013 Internet Security product line.  They     announced their latest iteration of their cloud-based security infrastructure, the Smart Protection Network,

Now for the bad - Year over year sales were down 2%  (Q3) , and net income, down 25%. The  drop in net sales was due to declines in both North America and Europe. Not good signs when given that the economies have been improving in these markets.   Japan had 3% growth.

On a revenue basis, (Pre GAAP before adjusting for deferred revenue) – North America  revenue declined 10% and Europe 8%.  Japan grew by 10%. (Q3 year over year)

Unlike the other major vendors, Trend Micro is heavily dependent on Japan for their revenue.  This grew to 51% in Q3 2012.  North America and Europe had 20% and 16% shares, respectively.  Sales were down in both the enterprise and consumer segments. 

Q4 is unlikely to help Trend.  Net sales are projected to be flat and net income down 41%.

This isn’t a pretty trend for Trend.  Since Kaspersky  has decided to remain a private company, there aren’t many publically available financial numbers for them, but they have to be pleased. If these trends continue, Kaspersky may be able to reach number three in 2013.

Despite their financial miscues, Trend Micro continues to be innovating. There are the patents mentioned above.   This week, Trend Micro announced their  free   Online Security Assessment Tools for Cloud, Cyber & Mobile Security.  These tools are designed to   provide customers with an assessment of their current business' security posture with respect to cloud adoption, consumerization, and targeted cyber attacks.  

Trend Micro hasn’t participated in Virus Bulletin (www.virusbtn.com ) testing since 2008.  They finished second in the AV-comparatives (www.av-comparatives.com ) "September 2012 Antivirus File Detection Test of Malicious software", however.

About Virus Bulletin   www.virusbtn.com

UK based Virus Bulletin started in 1989.  They provide PC users with a regular source of intelligence about computer viruses, their prevention, detection, and removal, and how to recover programs and data following an attack.  The Virus Bulletin website is at www.virusbtn.com

About AV-comparatives     www.av-comparatives.org

AV-Comparatives is an Austrian Non-Profit-Organization, which is providing independent Antivirus software tests free to the public.  Go to their website to view all the great comparative reports and surveys they publish.  A great number of their reports are free.

NSS Releases AV/EPP Comparative Analysis Report

NSS Labs  has released an AV/EPP Comparative Analysis of thirteen vendors products (Endpoint Protection Product).  The vendors in the analysis include Avast, AVG Technologies, Avira, ESET, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, Microsoft, Norman, Norton, Panda, Total Defense, and Trend Micro.  

This is an interesting report.  The only downside is that many of the products  are 2012 releases.  The goal of this eleven-page report was to test these vendors endpoint security suites (no free products other than Microsoft’s) effectiveness in protecting Windows computers against exploits. 

According  to  NSS, all the vulnerabilities exploited during the test have been publicly available for months (and years, even).  Tests included:

• HTTP Evasion & Compression
• HTML Obfuscation
• Payload Encoding
• File Compressors (download)
• Executable Packers (download)
• Executable Packers (execute)
• Layered Evasions

 Only three companies had an overall score of over 90% with Microsoft scoring the only 100%. The others over 90% were ESET and Kaspersky.  The highest score from a “free” vendor was Avira with 89%.  Again, this was their Internet Security suite.  Hall of Shame vendors trailing the others with 71%;  F-Secure, Total Defense, and Trend Micro. 

Eight vendors had a File Compression Block Rate of 0%.  Ouch.  NSS felt that the issue had to do with products allowing the download of compressed payloads without checking the content.  The other problem was with Executable Packers (download) with only five vendors scoring 100%.  NSS pointed out in the report  that most current browsers help block some malicious downloads.  Also, a default configuration that doesn’t inspect compressed downloads is one of those tradeoff things between performance and security.  Companies would never choose the default to be in favor of performance, though ;).

This report is well worth downloading.  People may also want to look at the NSS 2012 Exploit Protection Comparative Analysis Report.

As always, you can’t judge the quality of an internet security suite by the number of Facebook fans the vendor has nor by the number of likes on the vendor’s Facebook fan page. 

To learn more about NSS Labs, go to www.nsslabs.com