Fighting malware and spam

VB RAP test results - April 2009

April 2009 saw the first major set of results from VB's new RAP tests - which put products' reactive and proactive detection abilities to the test - following the introduction of the tests in February. The April 2009 test was run on the Windows XP platform (SP3).

The results of the February 2009 and April 2009 RAP tests are being made available to all registered users - in future tests, the results will only be viewable by Virus Bulletin subscribers. (Click here for subscription information.)

The results of the February 2009 RAP tests (carried out on Red Hat Enterprise Linux) can be viewed here.

The test measures products' detection rates across four distinct sets of malware samples. The first three test sets comprise malware first seen in each of the three weeks prior to product submission. These measure how quickly product developers and labs react to the steady flood of new malware emerging every day across the world. A fourth test set consists of malware samples first seen in the week after product submission. This test set is used to gauge products' ability to detect new and unknown samples proactively, using heuristic and generic techniques.

The test results are represented graphically. The three pale blue bars represent (from the left) weeks -3, -2 and -1, while the dark blue bar represents week +1. An overall 'RAP score' is also presented on the graph, which represents the average detection over the four weeks. In cases where products have generated false positives in our tests the background of the graph are coloured red and a large cross, together with 'FP' act as a warning to the user, showing the number of false positives generated.

A full description of the RAP testing methodology and explanation of how to interpret the results graphs can be read here.

The full review, including the RAP tests, VB100 awards and detailed results tables can be read here (available to subscribers only).

The full table is available to registered users. Click here for free registration or, if you already are a registered user, login to access the full table.

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