OneCare fails another detection test

Microsoft product found not up to scratch in AV-Comparatives review.

Respected testing organisation

AV-Comparatives

has released the results of its latest in-depth test of anti-virus products, with a large batch of products tried out over a wide range of malware. Only one product,

Microsoft

‘s

Windows Live OneCare

, failed to detect enough of the test set to qualify for any level of certification.

As part of a thorough regime of testing,

AV-Comparatives

runs tests of on-demand detection ability twice a year, pitting products in their most in-depth scanning modes against a vast collection of samples. Top of the test tables this time were

GData

‘s

AntiVirusKit

and

AEC

‘s

TrustPort

(reviewed in the latest issue of Virus Bulletin, available to subscribers

here

), both multi-engine products which spotted over 99% of the samples. Products from

Avira

,

F-Secure

,

Kaspersky

and

MicroWorld

also made the top ‘Advanced+’ grade.

The detection level required for certification at the lowest level, ‘Standard’, was recently raised from 80% to 85%, and the

Microsoft

product missed this, scoring just 82.4% overall. As this minimum level of detection is a requirement for inclusion in the review,

OneCare

risks being excluded from further testing.

‘It’s very disappointing to see a major product not reaching a good enough level of detection,’ said Andreas Clementi, who runs the

AV-Comparatives

testing. ‘For the sake of their customers, I hope

Microsoft

will be working hard to improve things and ensure

OneCare

offers full protection to its users.’

OneCare

came last in the detection tables for both viruses and trojans. In a further test of polymorphic virus samples,

OneCare

was placed 15th out of the 17 entries, with fully reliable detection of only four of the 12 viruses used.

Microsoft

‘s product also failed to achieve VB100 certification in our

recent test

of products available for the

Windows Vista

platform.

McAfee

and

Doctor Web

products achieved the

AV-Comparatives

‘Standard’ grading, with several others including

Symantec

,

BitDefender

,

Alwil

,

Grisoft

,

Eset

,

Norman

,

Frisk

and

Fortinet

attaining the ‘Advanced’ level. Full details of the test results and methodologies can be found at the

AV-Comparatives.org

website,

here

.

Posted on 02 March 2007 by

Virus Bulletin