In the latest antivirus software review from Virus Bulletin, the computer security company ESET, which operates out of Bratislava, has been awarded its 63rd VB100 award.

The Virus Bulletin report is regarded as one of the industry’s top antivirus software reviews. Virus Bulletin subjects the products it is testing to a number of rigorous examinations. Two essential criteria must be achieved to gain for a product the VB100 logo; one, the product must detect 100% of the viruses known to be ‘in the wild’ and two, the product must not flag up any files as dangerous when they are not, also known as generating false positives.

John Hawes, of Virus Bullet, said: "Memory usage was among the lowest in this month’s comparative, with CPU drain not breaking the bank either. Detection rates were as excellent as ever, with some superb RAP scores; no issues emerged in the WildList or clean sets, and ESET continues its monster unbroken run of VB100 passes.”

ThreatSense® technology is what drives the ESET antivirus capabilities; as an advanced heuristics engine, it means that the product is proactive in its rooting out of malware on a user’s computer. ESET deals with problems that may occur in real-time, and use a secure virtual world to analyse and deal with the danger. This means that even the most well-disguised pieces of malware are picked up and sorted out safely.

Ján Vrabec, security technology analyst at ESET, says: “ESET’s top priority is to protect the users at a maximum possible level, while minimizing false alerts system impact. All of these facts greatly contribute to our long-term success in Virus Bulletin testing.”

Whilst other products that have come through the Virus Bulletin tests have around a 50-70% success rate, ESET boasts an impressive 97% since 1998 when the VB100 awards were first created by the antivirus software review system Virus Bulletin review.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Sunbelt Software’s VIPRE flagship product has achieved another accolade following an antivirus review from Virus Bulletin.

The Virus Bulletin antivirus review, which places acceptable products on its VB100 list, has included VIPRE in its August 2010 issue. Virus Bulletin subjected VIPRE to a number of stringent tests; the software was loaded onto a system that ran Windows Vista Professional Service Pack 2, upon which it bombarded VIPRE with over 100,000 threats.

The threats ranged from those found on social networking sites, to those that can be picked up by gambling or gaming online; the variety tested to make sure that users of all interests would be secured against the threats on the internet. On top of these, VIPRE was tested with three new strains of W32/Vinut. Many products in the last couple of years have struggled to deal with this pesky threat.

False positives are also tested by Virus Bulletin; this is to ensure that the products don’t flag documents or webpages as being infected when they are in fact clean. In the results of the test, it was found that VIPRE detected 97.83% of worms and bots, with all viruses known to be circulating in the wild were caught without throwing up any false positives.

The viruses categorised as being ‘in the wild’ are those that cause mayhem on a daily basis, and attack normal every day operations on user’s computers. Detecting these is therefore vital for a product that users trust to install, and therefore entrusting them with making banking details secure, keeping personal information personal and ensuring computer safety.

VIPRE was applauded for having one of the highest average proactive detections rates of the products Virus bulletin tested. It was also appreciated as being streamlined on a user’s computer, therefore not taking up too much of the computer’s resources.

John Hawes, who coordinates the testing at Virus Bulletin, says: “Sunbelt’s marketing campaigns regularly boast of VIPRE’s lightness of weight and lack of bloat, and these assertions are certainly supported by the product’s wafer-thin 16MB installer, supplemented by a mere 66MB of updates, available to download as a standalone package from the company’s websites. The set-up process is short and sweet too, taking only a few seconds to complete – with no reboot needed, the process was over in less than half a minute.”

To be able to display the prestigious VB100 logo bestowed by Virus Bulletin, antivirus products like VIPRE must pass all the extensive tests.
Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt Software, commented: “Inclusion of the VB100 is a true testament of VIPRE’s capabilities as it is pitted against other leading antivirus products. Our focus has always been on our customer satisfaction, ease of use and high level of threat detection. The tests from Virus Bulletin show that VIPRE is a reliable antivirus solution that is easy to set up and use.”

The latest antivirus review by Virus Bulletin has assured VIPRE as one of the leading providers of antivirus products.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Antivirus reviews operation Virus Bulletin has announced that during a recent test of 54 anti-malware products on Windows Vista Business Edition SP2, 19 of the products did not reach the required standard for VB100 certification.

Virus Bulletin publishes some of the industry’s top antivirus reviews and it has found that many products are failing in their bid to protect internet users against potential malware dangers.

These products failed in a number of areas, and in areas that anyone would consider basic if they were to buy the product for the protection of their computers. The products failed to detect a number of viruses that were well known to be circulating, meaning that viruses that are entirely preventable are slipping through the rather patchy net. Other problems included false alarms appearing on files that are in fact clean; these were not from private users but from some of the top software houses, such as Roxio and Adobe.

Design and stability were also an issue. John Hawes, Virus Bulletin’s Anti-Malware Test Director, says “Most notable this month….has been the remarkable level of instability under pressure noted in many of the products – while our tests do not put unusual strain on the products, it is clearly important that security software should continue to function under pressure, and should not crumble in the face of heavy attack.”

The tests are stringent, with each of the products being tested against the WildList; this list is publicly available and shows up-to-date information on the malware that is known to be circulating at this current time, or has circulated in the past. To earn their VB100 certification, the products must detect 100% of these.

Unlike many of the products in this round of testing, a VB100 certified product would not generate false alarms when it scans a set of files the testers know to be clean. This kind of behaviour would not endear the products to the user: “Flaky behaviour will certainly not instil a sense of security in users, and developers need to ensure their quality control is thorough and comprehensive, to keep their users properly protected at all times,” continues John Hawes.

The antivirus reviews and tests give an insight in to what products are at the cutting edge of antivirus security, and take information from their tests and users’ experience to gather detailed analysis on every product. See BUYability’s antivirus reviews here.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

It has been announced that Virus Bulletin tests have just been completed on its largest number of anti-malware products yet.

Virus Bulletin tests were run in April 2010 on 60 products and 20 were failed, including those from Microsoft, Norman, Frisk and FortiNet whose products put up for examination failed to make the acceptable grade.

The Virus Bulletin tests threw-in a number of wobblies, including how well the products detected complex polymorphic viruses and also, some products produced false alarms on clean files. Some of these failing this test were products from major companies, with Adobe, Google, Microsoft and Sun in the firing line.

Some 40 products did pass the Virus Bulletin tests though and were awarded the VB100 certification.

The Virus Bulletin tests’ Anti-malware Test Director John Hawes said: “We put a huge range of products through their paces this month, and saw the usual problems with detection of complex viruses and false alarms on common software, with some splendid performances from some and pretty dire showings from others.

“It was pretty shocking how many crashes, freezes, hangs and errors we encountered in this test. XP has been around for a long, long time now and is still the world’s most widely used computing environment – so developers should be producing rock-solid software for it time after time. I’m sure any user who sees their system brought to a halt by their security software will vote with their feet and take their custom elsewhere.”

The Virus Bulletin tests have been going for about ten years and a detailed breakdown of the results are available to subscribers of the service. Virus Bulletin take various computer security products and subject them to a series of stringent tests against a range of malware which are on the WildList. This list is made up of the most up-to-date malware programmes known to be worrying the world’s computers. The Virus Bulletin tests involve making sure that the products under review have to be able to 100%  detect malware on the WildList. They also must not generate any false alarms when inspecting a clean set of files.

This process makes the Virus Bulletin tests and their VB100 Certification Scheme an important product accolade in the industry and consumer sector.

Guest Article by Neil Camp