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

Tolly Issues Reports on Huawei Access Point Performance versus Cisco, and Huawei Enterprise Router Throughput

The Tolly Group has released two reports comparing the  Huawei Access Point solutions to comparable products from Cisco.  Huawei commissioned these reports.  One guess as to which company came out ahead!  They also released a throughput report on four of Huawei's router products.  The timing of the release of these reports is interesting given the press Huawei has received in the past couple of months in the US press.

The three reports were issued in early November. 

• Huawei AP7110 WLAN Access Point Rate/Range Performance Evaluation vs. Cisco Aironet 3602i AP. Document 212142
• Huawei AP6010 WLAN Access Point Performance Evaluation vs. Cisco Aironet 3502i AP. Document 212143
• Huawei AR G3 Series Enterprise Routers GbE and 10GbE Forwarding and IPsec Throughput.  Document 212140.  This document isn’t a competitor comparative document. The report  measures performance of four of Huawei’s routers.  

The Access Point  reports found the Huawei products to provide consistently higher  single and multi client throughputs at the distances tested. In general, the delta was higher as the distance increased.

These are valid reports. Quite concise.  Tolly explains in detail the test methodology results.  Vendors work with Tolly on the test plan defining what they wish to be tested. The results “are what they are”.  If the vendor is unhappy with the report, the report may never be see the light of day.

So why would a vendor commission these studies?  Third party validation.  Bandwidth.  Tolly may find it easier to get assistance from a third party if they have technical questions.  Cisco didn’t appear to have been involved with these tests.  From the test report, “In accordance with Tolly’s Fair Testing Charter, Tolly personnel invited representatives from Cisco Systems to review the testing.  Cisco did not respond to the invitation to participate in the evaluation and review the test plan.”

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/10/us-intelligence-report-dont-trust-huawei.html

According to Tolly Group, over 65% of the Fortune 100 utilize Tolly reports.  A  huge number of reports are available for free to registered users.   www.tolly.com  http://www.tolly.com/AboutUs.aspx

Hewlett Packard to Expand Razor Product Line

Whoops, I meant their printer product line.  This expansion could  generate a fair amount of ink cartridge revenue for Hewlett Packard, as well.  "We haven't had a new product lineup in seven years," said HP CEO Meg Whitman in talking about Hewlett Packard’s plan to announce a new line of printers.  "It was very obvious that we had a product gap here."

Hewlett Packard will be introducing multi-function machines that combine printers with scanners and software to manage electronic documents.  The software will come from their Autonomy group.  The rumored price point, around $2500 to $3000, and targeted at small businesses and groups within larger companies.

In IDC's  “MarketScape: U.S. Shared, Networked Multifunction Peripherals for the Distributed Office 2012 Vendor Analysis” (Doc # 235820).  Companies in the Leaders quadrant include Xerox, Rico, HP, and Canon.  Konica/Minolta are close behind as Major Players.  IDC’s quadrant displays a company’s market share graphed against Capabilities and Strategies.  The Capabilities score measures vendor product, go-to-market and business execution in the short-term.  The Strategy score measures alignment of vendor strategies with customer requirements in a three to five year timeframe. Whitman's announcement will help keep HP in this section of the quadrant.

This announcement may portend good things for Todd Bradley,  head of HP’s printer and personal-computer businesses.  The printing unit has brought in over $25 billion in revenues to HP. Under the Hurd regime, R&D  suffered, dropping from  $3.7 billion to $3 billion between 2003 and 2010.  More will be spent under the Whitman regime.

Whitman also telegraphed some of her other strategies for the next couple of years  while speaking at the Gartner US Symposium/Txpo, held in Orlando.  She stated that HP would probably not release a smartphone until 2014.  She also expects HP to be a major contender in the tablet and mobile PC markets.

“There will be ups and downs in this business," Whitman said.  "PCs may be declining.  Tablets may be growing.  The business definition here is 'personal systems.’  It's not PCs.  It's personal systems.  And we think we can win.”  Whitman didn’t comment on which OS the smartphones will use.

Hewlett Packard’s stock decline has been steeper than the double diamond ski  runs at Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe, California.  On October 26, the stock hit another 52-week low of $13.94.  This represents a 52-week decline of around 50%.  Competitor Dell has had a slide of almost 45% over the same period and also had another 52-week low of $9.19.

Whitman and Hewlett Packard need to make some bold moves.  She  said when she became CEO   that turning Hewlett Packard around would be a multi-year effort.  She’s now just into her second year at the helm.  There may not be a third if things don’t start improving.

“Hewlett Packard and Meg Whitman – The First Year. Turbulence and Turmoil in the Valley” at

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/09/hewlett-packard-and-meg-whitman-first.html

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