More ConsumerReports complaints
Testing organisation's methodology slammed again.
ConsumerReports.org, the online wing of American consumers association Consumers Union, is once again
taking flak for its testing of security software, but this time for erring in the other direction.
Just weeks after revelations that the company created thousands of
viruses to test AV software, it has been roundly slated for a set of tests on spyware software using only
Spycar, intended to be the Spyware industry's
equivalent of the Eicar AV test file. However, Spycar is a spyware simulator, intended to test
behaviour-based detection, and so inappropriate for the on-demand tests ConsumerReports used it for.
Apparently no genuine spyware was included in the testing.
Read some of the criticism
here and here.
30 August 2006
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