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Virus Bulletin : News – AV-Test release latest results

<!– –>Test Results: 2009 Anti-Malware Suites Better at Sniffing Out Threats

AV-Test’s latest lab results show improvements in malware detection, without jeopardizing performance

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008 | Finally, some good news about antivirus products: The new 2009 releases of popular antivirus and Internet security suites overall are catching more malware than their previous versions and without major performance hits, according to newly released test results. Independent testing lab AV-Test looked at 33 different anti-malware products that had been updated through Aug. 18 — including 2008 and 2009 versions of F-Secure, Symantec, and Panda’s anti-malware suites as well as Windows Live OneCare 2.5.2900.03, Kaspersky Internet Security 2009, and McAfee Internet Security 2008 — measuring how well they did in detecting malware and spyware, proactively detecting new and unknown malware, responding to new widespread malware, scanning quickly, and generating false positives.

“In most cases, the test results of the different products didn’t change dramatically… [Most] got better when compared with our March 2008 testing and all 2009 editions we’ve reviewed performed better than the current releases,” says Andreas Marx, CEO of AV-Test. “I especially liked that the protection got better while the system performance wasn’t hit that much — the 2009 editions [including beta versions] were faster than the 2008 releases. So it looks like that most vendors have done their homework and instead of adding only new features, they also took care about the system performance.”

Marx noted that many of the ’09 products can or will eventually use “cloud” type services for more comprehensive scans. “If an unknown file has been found on a system and this file appears to be suspicious, the scanner (and guard) will check if it’s a known good or bad application by contacting a server from the AV company,” he says. “This might further increase the detection rates. However, you’d need to be online and accept such connections in order to get this additional protection.”

In the AV-Test research, Symantec’s Norton 2009 beta came out with some of the best ratings in the lab tests, catching over 98 percent of malware, over 95 percent of spyware, and no false positives. The software also found new malware over 95 percent of the time. Marx notes that Symantec is now pushing virus definition updates, known as “pulse updates,” every five to 10 minutes in some cases.

Among the products with the lowest scores were CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2008, ClamWin 0.93.1, Dr.Web for Windows 4.44, Rising Internet Security 2008, and VirusBuster Professional 10.86.1. AV-Test did not test rootkit detection — which has been a weak spot for most anti-malware tools — in this round of testing to give vendors time to improve this detection, which was poor in AV-Test’s April results. (See New Tests Show Rootkits Still Evade AV.)

AV-Test says it used the best available editions of the products, and ran the tests on Windows XP platforms, using over 1.1 million malware samples. “The 2009 [products] seem to be a lot better optimized for the real needs of the customers, and they will not slow down the systems in such a dramatic way like the 2008 editions did,” Marx says.

— Kelly Jackson Higgins, Senior Editor, Dark Reading

http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=162788

AV-Test release latest results

Major test of suite products completed

Independent testing body AV-Test.org has released the results of a major comparative of suite products, with many vendors’ 2009 editions included in the results. The test covers a range of metrics, including detection rates over various types of malware including adware and spyware, false positive rates, scanning speed, proactive detection, and response times to outbreaks.

In terms of pure detection rates in on-demand scanning, a beta version of GDATA‘s AVK 2009 topped the charts for both ‘malware’ (measured against 1,164,662 samples) and ‘ad- and spyware’ (94,291 samples), with Avira‘s Premium Security Suite 2008 a close runner-up in the former category and F-Secure 2009 placing second in the latter. Secure Computing‘s Webwasher gateway product, based on the Avira engine with some in-house heuristics, came third in both categories.

Other areas analysed were scored on a five-point scale from very good to very poor. ‘Proactive’ protection included scanning of files discovered after the freezing of products, and executing unrecognised malware to test behavioural protection. Products rating ‘good’ or better in every category include Avira‘s premium suite (the popular free version has less complete spyware detection), AVK 2009, F-Secure‘s 2009 suite, Symantec‘s Norton I.S. 2009 (still in beta) and Sophos‘s Security Suite 2.5. All products taking part in the test managed to achieve a ‘good’ or better in at least one category.

The test also included keeping a record of the number of updates released over a four-week period. Of course, these numbers on their own cannot be used to measure the quality of the products involved, but were recorded out of interest. The most interesting data to emerge from this measurement was that the 2009 version of Norton topped the table with an impressive 6,202 incremental micro-updates, issued several times per hour, while Kaspersky came a distant second with a mere 696. Half of the 34 products tested had fewer than 100, including those from McAfee (21) and Trend Micro (30).

A summary of the major areas tested is printed below; hover over the product names to see full version information.

Product	malware on demand	adware / spyware on demand	false positives	scan speed	proactive detection	response times	malware on demand	adware / spyware on demand
AntiVir (Avira)	++	++ (4)	+	++	+	++	99.8%	99.0%
Avast! (Alwil)	++	++	+	+	o	o	99.3%	98.3%
AVG	+	– (4)	+	+	o	o	95.8%	87.0%
AVK 2008 (G Data) (1)	++	++	o	–	+	++	99.2%	99.1%
AVK 2009 (G Data) (2)	++	++	+	+	++	++	99.8%	99.8%
BitDefender 2008	+	–	+	–	++	+	97.7%	87.8%
BitDefender 2009	+	–	+	o	++	+	97.6%	88.0%
CA-AV (VET)	—	—	++	o	–	—	65.5%	68.0%
ClamAV	–	o	–	—	–	++	88.5%	92.8%
Dr Web	—	–	o	o	+	o	84.9%	89.6%
eScan	+	+	o	–	+	++	97.8%	97.4%
Fortinet-GW	o	—	o	+	++	+	92.6%	81.9%
F-Prot (Frisk)	o	o	+	+	o	o	94.8%	92.6%
F-Secure 2008	++	++	+	o	++	+	98.2%	98.4%
F-Secure 2009	++	++	+	+	++	++	99.2%	99.6%
Ikarus	++	++	o	+	+	+	99.5%	98.6%
K7 Computing	o	o	o	++	–	o	92.1%	94.0%
Kaspersky	++	++	o	o	+	++	98.4%	98.3%
McAfee	o	o	++	o	+	–	93.6%	94.5%
Microsoft	+	+	++	o	–	–	97.7%	97.1%
Nod32 (Eset)	o	o	++	++	++	+	94.4%	94.7%
Norman	+	+	+	o	+	o	96.3%	95.8%
Norton 2008 (Symantec)	+	o	++	+	+	o	97.8%	94.6%
Norton 2009 (Symantec)	++	+	++	++	+	++	98.7%	95.4%
Panda 2008	–	o	+	+	++	o	86.4%	93.4%
Panda 2009	o	+	+	+	++	+	91.8%	95.6%
Rising	—	—	+	o	o	o	83.4%	77.5%
Sophos	+	+	+	+	++	+	97.5%	95.0%
Trend Micro	o	–	+	+	o	+	91.3%	88.5%
TrustPort	++	++	–	—	++	++	99.5%	98.4%
VBA32	o	–	o	o	+	o	90.5%	85.2%
VirusBuster	–	–	+	+	o	o	89.0%	85.8%
WebWasher-GW (3)	++	++	o	++	++	++	99.7%	99.2%
ZoneAlarm	+	+	o	o	+	++	97.8%	97.7%
Index	malware on demand	adware / spyware on demand	false positives	scan speed	proactive detection	response times	malware on demand	adware / spyware on demand
++	>98%	>98%	no FP			< 2 h
+	>95%	>95%	1-2 FP			2 – 4 h
o	>90%	>90%	3-4 FP			4 – 6 h
–	>85%	>85%	5-6 FP			6 – 8 h
—	<85%	<85%	> 6 FP			> 8 h

Notes
(1) AVK 2008 uses the Avast and Kaspersky scan engines
(2) AVK 2009 uses the Avast and BitDefender scan engines
(3) WebWasher uses the Avira engine and a self-developed heuristic engine
(4) the free (personal) edition does not include ad- and spyware detection, so the results would be —

02 September 2008

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