Posted by Virus Bulletin on Mar 26, 2012
Bi-monthly stats released for 31 consumer and business products.
Independent testing body Av-Test.org has published its latest round of results, covering some 23 consumer products and eight business solutions, all tested during January and February. All products featured in this month's report qualified for AV-Test's certification.
The test scheme covers a wide range of measures, split into three categories: 'Protection', which includes static detection measures over high-prevalence and more diverse sets of malware samples, as well as live 'real-world' testing against a smaller selection of the latest threats; 'Repair', which covers detection and removal of active malware, including rootkits; and 'Usability', which includes impact on system performance and false positive testing, in both static scanning and when downloading, installing and using legitimate software. A maximum of six points is awarded for each category.
The consumer test requires a minimum total of 11 points to earn certification, while in the business product test the cut-off is either 10 points or at least 3.5 in two of the three categories.
In the consumer test, the top performer was BitDefender with 17 out of a possible 18, closely followed by Kaspersky with 16.5 and F-Secure with 15.5.
Also putting in good performances were AVG's Internet Security (the paid-for version) and Symantec's Norton, both with 15 points, and Norman's Security Suite, Panda's Cloud Antivirus and Internet Security products, and Webroot's SecureAnywhere, all scoring 14.5. Just behind them were free products from Avast and AVG, and G Data's Internet Security, which scored 14 points, Avira, BullGuard and Trend Micro's Titanium with 13.5 points, and K7's Total Security and McAfee's Total Protection with 13 points.
Bringing up the rear were GFI VIPRE, Microsoft's Security Essentials and Qihoo 360 which scored 12.5 points, while AhnLab, ESET and PC Tools just scraped by with 11 points, the minimum required to earn certification.
In the corporate test, Kaspersky's Endpoint Security led the pack with 16 points, well ahead of F-Secure's Client Security on 14.5. Symantec's Endpoint Protection, with 13.5 points, was just ahead of McAfee's VirusScan Enterprise and Sophos' Endpoint Security and Control, both of which scored 13 points, and Microsoft's Forefront Endpoint Protection which scored 12.5 points. At the bottom of the table were two products from Trend Micro: Worry-Free Business Security scored 11 points, and Office Scan scored 9 points - both were let down by a poor performance in the cleaning category.
The tests were run on Windows XP with SP3. Full details of the results, including a breakdown for each product, can be found at the AV-Test website, here.
Posted on 26 March 2012 by Virus Bulletin
