The test set for Malware Protection Test consisted of about 38,000 samples. As we only use samples that have been analysed by our own in-house automated sandboxes, the quality of our sets is very high. Unlike some other testers, we only use malware in our tests, and do not include PUAs or other controversial software. What is malicious and what is “potentially unwanted” is sometimes debatable. We welcome feedback from vendors; however, the decision as to whether something can or cannot be classified as malware is ultimately up to us, even if our decisions may sometimes be regarded as imperfect.
Sample quality for the Malware Protection Test
Schneier on Testing…
Certificate authorities issue SSL certificates to fraudsters
https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2015/10/12/certificate-authorities-issue-hundreds-of-deceptive-ssl-certificates-to-fraudsters.html
Safe Harbor agreement ruled invalid by top EU court
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/10/06/safe-harbor-agreement-ruled-invalid-by-top-eu-court/
10-Year Participation Awards
At VB2015 we handed out the 10-Year Participation Awards to Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, ESET, F-Secure, Kaspersky Lab and McAfee.
Read more here (PDF).
URL Competition @VB2015
For the second time, we ran an URL competition during the Virus Bulletin conference 2015. We plan to host a URL competition every year.
Conference delegates received a code to register for the competition.
26 Malware Hunters (from 14 different companies) joined the competition and submitted in total 238 URLs during the conference. Most of the submissions were 404, PUA, exploits that did not work on the target system or clean URLs/files. Continue reading…
List of AV Vendors (Mac)
In the Mac security comparative tests/reviews, we usually include only products of vendors which applied to get their security product scrutinized and publicly evaluated.
On the page below you can find a list of 25 relatively well-known Mac security vendors.
List of AV Vendors (PC)
We get sometimes asked why we do not test all AV’s out there. There exist several hundred (several thousand worldwide, if we would count every rebranded security software or other various products providing some form of security). We usually include only about 16-20 of the most well-known AV products in our public main test-series. Some other can be found in our single product tests, several more are getting tested only internally.
On the following pages you can find a list of well-known AV vendors, just to give you an impression that there are more products out there than most of the users even known/heard about.
Archive of AV-C Tests/Reviews 2004-2014
Below you can find the Archive of AV-C Tests/Reviews 2004-2014 as PDF reports. For tests and reviews of the current year, please visit www.av-comparatives.org
Real-World Protection Tests
2014b, 2014a, 2013b, 2013a, 2012b, 2012a, 2011b, 2011a, 2010, 2009
File Detection Tests
2014b, 2014a, 2013b, 2013a, 2012b, 2012a, 2011b, 2011a, 2010b, 2010a, 2009b, 2009a, 2008b, 2008a, 2007b, 2007a, 2006b, 2006a, 2005b, 2005a, 2004b, 2004a
Behavioural Tests
2014, 2013, 2012
False Alarm Tests
2014b, 2014a, 2013b, 2013a, 2012b, 2012a, 2011b, 2011a, 2010b, 2010a, 2009
Performance Tests
2014b, 2014a, 2013b, 2013a, 2012b, 2012a, 2011b, 2011a, 2010b, 2010a, 2009, 2008
Malware Removal Tests
2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2009
Anti-Phishing Tests
2013, 2012, 2011
Mac Security Reviews / Tests
2014, 2013, 2012
Mobile Security Reviews / Tests
2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010
Business Security Reviews
2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009
Firewall Reviews / Tests
2014
Parental Control Reviews / Tests
2014
Summary Reports
2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006
Surveys
2014, 2013, 2012, 2011
Heuristic Tests
2011b, 2011a, 2010b, 2010a, 2009b, 2009a, 2008b, 2008a, 2007b, 2007a, 2006b, 2006a, 2005b, 2005a, 2004b, 2004a
Best Paper Award 2014 @MalCon
We got the Best Paper Award at the Malware Conference 2014 for our Paper: “Global and local prevalence weighting of missed attack sample impacts for endpoint security product comparative detection testing”.