AV-Comparatives File Detection Test – September 2015

Av-Comparatives prolific team of writers and testers has released their File Detection Test – September 2015. Nine products received three stars. Avira and BitDefender topped the 21 products in the test.   Their false positive rate was only 0.2%. Other companies receiving three stars, in alphabetical order, were Bullguard, Emisoft, eScan, ESET, Kaspersky, Lavasoft, and Panda.  You can download the report  to see the actual order.

ESET, Microsoft, and Panda had zero false positives The hall of shame award for this test goes to AVG Technologies with a false positive rate 32 times larger Avira and Bitdefender, at 6.5%, (139 false positives).

About the AV-Comparatives  File Detection Test

The awards for the File Detection Test were based on a combination of detection rates and false positives.   The File Detection Test assesses the ability of antivirus programs to detect malicious files on a system. It can identify malware attacks from sources other than the Internet, and it  can identify  malicious files already present on the system.

 “With more than 130000 samples in the test, AV-Comparatives uses one of the largest sample collection worldwide to provide statistically valid results”, according to AV-Comparatives’ Andreas Clementi.

ABC Award for the  File Detection Test

The ABC award (Avoids Being Compared) goes to Symantec. The File Detection Test  is one of the core tests the organization performs. Companies cannot choose which of these core tests to be in. It's all or none.  The ABC award is not part of AV-Comparatives’ test   program!

The document can be downloaded at:    

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

The  file detection rate of a product is only one aspect of a complete anti-virus product. AV-Comparatives also provides a whole-product dynamic “real-world” protection test, as well as other test reports that cover different aspects/features of the products.  For those interested, you can easily do a deep dive into individual company’s historical performances on tests or sign up for the newsletter.   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.  

AV-Comparatives Anti-virus Comparative Summary Report 2012, BitDefender Named Product of the Year

Test group AV-Comparatives has released their Anti-virus Comparative Summary Report 2012.  This quite thorough 180 page  report contains a summary of the winning products for the test they performed in 2012, and  also contains an extensive 150 plus page user interface review section.A great report to download.

On an overall basis, AV-Comparatives, gave eight company's products their Top Rated designation.  In alphabetical order, these were  Avast, Avira,  Bitdefender,  BullGuard, ESET, F-Secure, G DATA, and  Kaspersky. Congratulations to these companies! 

For the individual   tests, the 2012 report lists the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medal recipients.   To view the Silver and Bronze recipients, you’ll have to download the free report. Below are the Gold Medal Recipients.

Gold Medal Recipients - Summary Report 2012

• Product of the Year – Bitdefender (G Data and Kaspersky, were awarded Bronze and Silver)
• File Detection – Avira
• Whole-Product “Real-World” Dynamic Protection - BitDefender (a nice interactive report)
• Proactive (Heuristic) Detection/Protection - A tie.  BitDefender and Kaspersky
• False Positive – Microsoft
• Overall Performance (Low System Impact) – Webroot
• Anti-Phishing Protection – BitDefender
• Malware Removal – A tie, BitDefender and Kaspersky

Congratulations to the Gold Medal recipients listed above and to the Silver and Bronze Medal Recipients listed in the 2012  report!

AC-comparatives encourages people trying to select a product to go to the vendor’s websites, download a trial version, and try products for themselves.  Many vendors have multiple flavors of internet security suites, each with their own spin on additional features.  Many offer multi-user and multi-year licenses.  One thing not to do.  Don’t chose based on how many Facebook Fans like the product.   

Symantec doesn’t appear in this report.  In order to be tested and reported on by AV-Comparatives, vendors have to agree to participate in all the tests.  Symantec chose not to do this.  Hence, they’re not listed in any of the tests. Steve Bennett.This could be the year.

The report also has a great  link that lets you select a year and view a one page report listing all vendors and how many stars they received for each test they were in. The most stars a vendor could receive on a single test was  three.  They could also receive two, one, and tested.  A perfect score for the year – twenty seven.  BitDefender received twenty six  in 2012.  

Freemium Vendors

The freemium vendors in the report were Avast, AVG Technologies, Avira, Panda, and PC Tools.  As mentioned above,  nine different tests with a potential total of twenty seven stars. 

• Avast – 22 stars
• Avira – 22 stars (yes, a tie)
• Panda - 19 stars
• AVG Technologies – 14 stars
• PC Tools – 13 stars

Avast and Avira received the same number of stars in seven of the nine tests and were both among the AV-Comparatives eight top products for 2012.   Avast wins the Czech crown for the year.  

About AV-comparatives     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.

AV-Comparatives Releases November Malware Removal Test

Test group AV-Comparatives has released their latest Malware Removal Test. As the organization themselves, wrote, “This test focuses only on the malware removal/clean capabilities…it has nothing to do with detection rates or protection capabilities”.  What this means to the lay person, in colloquial terms, “Don’t buy an anti-malware product on the basis of this test.”  There is something to be said for products that clean remnants  up on the system, however.  It’s a relatively brief report and only thirteen  products were tested.

Only three products received three stars.  In order within that group were products from BitDefender, Kaspersky, and Panda.  Congratulations to the companies!

Two companies had products receiving one star, AVG Technologies, and Avast.   No bragging rights in the Czech Republic for either of them. 

BitDefender and Kaspersky were both in the top five in  the AV-Comparatives File Detection Test of Malicious Software – September 2012, Real World Protection Test.  http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/10/av-comparatives-file-detection-test-of.html  

Kaspersky and BitDefender both  received three stars in AV-comparative’s File Detection Test of Malicious Software. This was last revised in October. This is a different test from the Malware Removal Test.

To download and read the complete Malware Removal Test report, go to  the AV-comparatives web site.   It's the end of the year. It's chilly outside. Now is the time to pull down these reports, start up a fire in the fireplace and read these. Win bar bets as to who had the best results.

About AV-comparatives     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.

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

Internet Security Companies and Test Groups – Market Current Tests and Current Releases

It's October and most major internet security providers have released their Internet Security Suite 2013 solutions.  This includes AVG Technologies, Avira, Kaspersky, Panda,  TrustPort, Norton, Symantec, Trend Micro,  and G Data.  Avast hasn’t released their 2013 product line yet. 

Why  is ITwhitepapers.com  sending out an email  -  “PassMark Software conducted objective performance testing on five publicly available Enterprise Endpoint Protection products and a RTM version of Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 on Windows 7 between September 2010 and July 2011”  inviting me to download an old report?

First – the dates encompass September 2010 through July 2011.  Second – It’s now October 2012. Third – the test is on Windows 7.  Why promote  a white paper published in  July 2011?    IMHO, this report has limited utility.  Symantec, sponsor of the “Endpoint Protection Enterprise Benchmarks” study,    received the highest score among the products tested.   

Look for results from www.virusbtn.com , www.av-test.org , and www.av-comparatives.org , to start appearing in the near future using Internet Security Suite 2013 and Antivirus 2013 solutions.  AV-comparatives has posted some reports that include   2013 solutions already.  Their October “AV-Comparative Performance Test” is available.  Webroot, ESET, and Avast came in first through third.  Trend Micro trailed the pack.  This test used antivirus products. 

 http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/performance-tests/244-performance-test-av-only-october-2012  

You can also view   current results of the AV-Comparatives   “Whole Product Dynamic Real World Detection Test”.  You can select your own timeframe to generate a graph incorporating results for 20 internet security vendors.

Another source of information for current releases is at www.pcmag.com where Neil Rubenking has been busy reviewing products. 

Demerits for ITwhitepapers.com (and possibly Symantec).  One week in a virtual online corner for pushing old test reports, particularly  in a rapidly changing environment, internet security.  

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/09/best-internet-security-suites-2013-best.html