Top four beat 99% in large collection scan.
Testers at
AV-Test.org
have run 29 products over a massive collection of malware samples, with detection rates measured against 874,822 items including worms, trojans, bots and backdoors. The top two were multi-engine products, with
GDATA
‘s
AntiVirusKit
ranked number one with 99.88% detection, and the
Webwasher
gateway product a close second with 99.86%.
Close behind came
BitDefender
, with 99.51%, and
Avira
‘s
AntiVir
, on 99.29%, showing that single-engine products can also keep up with the amount of malware being pumped out by cybercriminals around the globe.
Kaspersky
came in fifth with 98.86%.
Also scoring over 90% were products from
F-Secure
,
Alwil
,
Grisoft
,
Symantec
,
Microsoft
,
Ikarus
,
Sophos
,
ESET
,
Fortinet
,
McAfee
,
Dr Web
,
Rising
and
Panda
. In the 80-90% range came
Trend Micro
,
VBA32
,
F-Prot
,
Norman
,
Authentium
and
VirusBuster
, with
CAT QuickHeal
, open-source
ClamAV
,
CA
‘s
eTrust
,
Ewido
anti-spyware scanner and
eSafe
gateway product bringing up the rear with 70-80%.
Microsoft
was commended for the improvement in its detection rate, up 10% on its previous performance, which is put down to an aggressive hiring policy targeting top experts from across the industry – the latest recruit is former
Virus Bulletin
technical editor Jakub Kaminski, previously with
CA
in Australia.
The testers also measured the size of the virus databases used, finding a wide diversity from the smallest,
ESET
‘s
Nod32
with 8.7MB and
Dr Web
with 8.9MB, to the biggest,
Symantec
‘s 40.2MB,
Fortinet
‘s 51.9MB,
Trend Micro
‘s 67.2MB and
eSafe
‘s enormous 91.4MB. Reasons for the large databases include not compressing the data, for extra speed, and including detailed disinfection routines for specific items and infestations.
AV-Test
‘s vast testset includes only validated items reported in the last six months. The researchers stress that their results are only a snapshot of detection rates at a specific moment in time, and that results of a range of tests should be taken together to give a more accurate picture of the protection offered by a product. Users are also advised to practise safe computing, keeping software patched and exercising caution on the web, rather than relying entirely on security software.
All products tested were the latest home-user or small business versions from each vendor. Testing consisted of an on-demand scan of the test collection with the best possible detection settings enabled, although some products may offer additional protection such as behavioural monitoring, intrusion detection etc. More information on the testing is available at
AV-test.org
, with detailed papers on the company’s testing techniques
here
.
Representatives of
AV-Test
will be presenting two new papers at the
VB2007
conference, taking place next month in Vienna, Austria. Andreas Marx and Frank Dessman will present
‘The WildList is dead, long live the WildList!’
, while Tom Brosch and Maik Morgenstern will discuss ‘Malware removal – beyond content and context scanning’. Details of the conference are
here
and registration information is
here
. A discount is available for
VB
subscribers.
Posted on 22 August 2007 by
Virus Bulletin
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