VB Migration

Tag: anti-virus

  • VirusTotal project aims to remediate false positives

    Security vendors to receive alerts when legitimate files are detected as malicious. False positives are a huge problem for the IT industry in general and for security products in particular. Indeed, in our VB100 and VBSpam comparative tests, many otherwise well performing products have failed to achieve an award because they blocked too many legitimate…

  • Low VirusTotal detection rates for new malware, do they matter?

    It is not as important as is often suggested — and doesn’t mean the malware is allowed to execute. It is fairly common these days for security researchers to write about new malware attacks and point to low anti-virus detection rates when the affected sample is uploaded to VirusTotal ‘s multi-AV scanning service. But do…

  • Report: VB100 comparative review on Windows 8.1

    40 out of 48 tested products earn VB100 award. If you follow the security news, you may believe that all you have to worry about are nation states using zero-day vulnerabilities to infiltrate networks and computers with stealth malware. The reality is, of course, more complicated, and if this is indeed your biggest worry, your…

  • The VB2014 presentation you never saw. Early launch Android malware: your phone is 0wned

    Malicious apps may have more privileges than security software. There are many people without whom a Virus Bulletin conference wouldn’t be possible: the VB team, the crew from Cue Media , the hotel staff, the speakers, the sponsors , the delegates. But the unsung heroes of a conference are the reserve speakers. They prepare a…

  • Open letter asks AV companies for openness on surveillance malware

    Old issue has become hot topic again following Snowden revelations. A group of experts in privacy and digital rights has sent an open letter ( pdf ) to a number of anti-virus companies, asking them to be clear about their detection of government surveillance software both in the past and in future cases. The experts,…

  • US lifts ban on anti-virus software for Iran

    Eased restrictions welcomed by security experts. The United States has announced it has eased export restrictions to Iran, and now allows for the export of mobile phones and software, including anti-virus software. The US originally imposed sanctions against Iran following the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and has tightened them several times since, among other things…

  • Anti-virus software significantly shortens life of banking trojans

    Security software causes malware to run for less than a third as long. ‘Does anti-virus software actually help?’ is a question often asked, even by security experts – who point to the fact that malware authors test their creations to make sure they aren’t detected by anti-virus products before releasing them, and to the fact…

  • Fake codec trojan disables anti-virus software

    Victim tricked into believing security software still active. A new trojan, discovered by researchers at ESET , spreads itself via fake codecs, then disables running anti-virus solutions and makes the user believe that the anti-virus is still running. The trojan spreads via Facebook chat and engages in a short, probably automated, conversation with the victim…

  • Dutch most protected Europeans online

    Bulgarians most likely to have become infected; financial losses most prevalent among Latvians. For the occasion of Safer Internet Day on 8 February, Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, published a report providing various statistics on Internet security. One of the report’s findings was that the use of IT security software (e.g. anti-virus software or a…