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

February Virus Bulletin RAP Averages Quadrant (Reactive and Proactive) July 2012 through February 2013

Virus Bulletin has released their   RAP Averages Quadrant for the July through February timeframe.  There was a little bit of movement from the previous test, but nothing too exciting.  Avira Free wins among the companies best known for their freemium solutions.  Avast was a little ahead of AVG Technologies for Praha bragging rights.   

Once again, some estimating was necessary to pick the below.

RAP Averages Quadrant July 2012 through February 2013

1. Coranti
2. Avira Free
3. G Data
4. Fortinet
5. Lavasoft, TrustPort, BitDefender, BullGuard, Huari

Hall of Shame awards for their performance – Total Defense (by far), SPAMfighter, Frisk, and Commtouch. All scored below 70% on Reactive Detection, with Total Defense at about 55%.  Where are the 800-pound gorillas awards go to Symantec and Trend Micro for not being in the test.  Come on, Steve Bennett.  This test and AV-comparatives.  Time to step up.  Symantec had a big booth at the RSA security show.  The company   should be willing to be in these. 

The previous RAP averages test  had clusters of companies, as listed below. 

1. Zeobit, Coranti (clear winners)
2. Lavasoft, TrustPort, G Data
3. Fortinet, Avira Free, Avira Pro, Roboscan, BitDefender, BullGuard, Emisoft, eScan

 Tests like these provide  useful information in evaluating the relative strengths of the products.  It obviously wins out over the wisdom of Facebook fans clicking on like!  You can view the RAP Averages Quadrant chart at

http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/latest_comparative/index

Subscribers to Virus Bulletin's publications have access to more details on the results.

RAP Averages Quadrant

This test measures products' detection rates across four distinct sets of malware samples.  The first three test sets comprise malware first seen in each of the three weeks prior to product submission.  These measure how quickly product developers and labs react to the steady flood of new malware emerging every day across the world.  A fourth test set consists of malware samples first seen in the week after product submission.

http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/latest_comparative/index

  

Virus Bulletin

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

 

Whole Product Dynamic Real World Protection Test – December 2012

It’ll be a few months before AV-Comparatives has a multi-month compilation for this test.  For the month of December though, Trend Micro topped all vendors with a score of 100%.  Congratulations to them!

The top five for the month were:

1. Trend Micro
2. BitDefender
3. F-Secure
4. G Data
5. Kaspersky

Among the best-known vendors known for their freemium products, Avira topped the field.  For the freemium vendors:

09. Avira  

14. Avast (Wins bragging rights for the Czech Republic for the month)

16. Panda

17. AVG Technologies

19. PC Tools (owned by Symantec)

As always, the Whole Product Real World Protection Test is one test.  Individuals or companies evaluating the ability of products to detect and capture malware should visit www.av-comparatives.org , www.virusbtn.com , and www.av-test.org    to view the results of other tests.  These   organizations   use relatively large samples in testing, which improves the legitimacy of the results.  All are more valid than the number of likes on a Facebook fan page.  There is more to product quality than a number of "likes" on a Facebook fan page.

Webroot isn't fond of most real world tests, commenting in a July blog “Webroot Bulletin Regarding AV-Comparatives Results" that,  "Currently most “Real World” tests rely on automation and AV scanners are only given a single chance at detection before the test system is reverted for the next round of testing.  Unfortunately this testing model doesn’t give WSA a chance to leverage our unique cloud approach as it has a very static view of the files being tested.”  They also stated that, "Webroot continues to drive innovation in our products though this isn’t always met with equal innovation in the testing process."  To read the complete blog, go to, http://blog.webroot.com/2012/07/19/webroot-bulletin-regarding-av-comparatives-results/

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.  

PC World Internet Security 2013 Showdown – Mashup with AV-Test and AV-Comparatives

PC World has published their test of  Internet Security 2013 products.  Kudos to F-Secure finishing on top with 4.5 stars in the review!!! Symantec/Norton, Trend Micro, and Bit Defender finished second through fourth, also with 4.5 stars in the PC World showdown.Other factors weighed in to determine the placings. Individual reviews are available.   AVG Technologies Internet Security 2013  and Avira Internet Security 2013  had their products finish in eighth and ninth respectively with 3.5 stars.  Companies with products in the PC World Test – Norton, F-Secure, Trend Micro, BitDefender, Kaspersky, Avira, G Data,  and AVG Technologies.

In a mash­-up with AV-Test.org January test results and AV-Comparative.org results from their “September File Detection Test 2012”, F-Secure Internet Security, Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security, and BitDefender Internet Security were the top  products.  Symantec was ineligible since they were not tested by AV-Comparatives last year.  Symantec wanted to choose which test s to participate in.  Companies had to agree to participate in all so…. Perhaps they will man up this year under their new CEO!  Products tested by AV-Test.org were Internet Security solutions and by AV-Comparatives, Antivirus solutions. The last column is the average of the rankings in the previous tests.

Table of Results

In the AV-Test.org test, several times, products had the same score. Since Symantec didn't participate in the AV-Comparative.org test, they were removed from the above table.

It’s kind of disappointing that the Internet Security products from freemium vendors finished eighth and ninth.  

From the PC World Individual Test Reports 

 PC stated about F-Secure, “With excellent protection and a user-friendly interface, F-Secure is definitely worth a look.  This security package adds a little extra weight to your system, but if you can get past those performance issues, it’s a great program.”

“AVG Internet Security 2013 is a perfectly respectable antivirus program with a great new top-level user interface.  But that’s the problem—in these malware tests, “perfectly respectable” doesn’t quite cut it and we saw several programs that outdid AVG at nearly every turn.”  The AVG Technology solution also had the lowest detection rate of the products tested.

“At the end of the day, Avira Internet Security 2013 is a competent antivirus program.  But being merely competent isn’t a great thing, especially when it’s combined with an interface that's for advanced users only.”

The following link takes you to the article, “Security software showdown!  9 antivirus suites empirically tested.”  From here, you can also reach links for detailed reports about all nine products tested.  http://www.pcworld.com/article/2025949/security-software-showdown-9-antivirus-suites-empirically-tested.html

Read the individual test reports, as well as Neil Rubenking and his test reports in PC Magazine. Beware the thumbs of   Facebook friends. Not the best way to select your security solution. Save James Surowiecki's    "wisdom of crowds" for something else.

 

About AV-comparatives.org     www.av-comparatives.org

AV-Comparatives is an Austrian Non-Profit-Organization.  They provide 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.

About AV-Test.org http://www.av-test.org

 

The AV-TEST Institute is a leading international and independent service provider in the fields of IT security and anti-virus research.  The aim of the research work carried out by AV-TEST is to directly detect the latest malware, to analyze it using state-of-the-art methods and to inform their customers of the top-quality results obtained.