An independent research conducted by Anti-Virus Comparatives recently tested  some of the most popular anti-virus software including those from Dr. Web, McAfee, Avast, BitDefender, Symantec, F-Secure, TrustPort, and Microsoft, to name a few. Unfortunately, for Microsoft, their Windows Live OneCare just happened to come in at a very distant ‘last place’ out of 17 different applications tested.

Over 1 million samples were used in this test, and all the anti-virus software was updated and set to use the best possible settings. The test was split into two different detection methods: one testing detection among Windows viruses, macros, worms, and Scripts; while the other method was to test the detection on backdoors, trojans, and other possible malware.

Each software was given a ranking on the percentage  of malicious software that was detected on the test machines. The results were quite shocking; Microsoft’s Windows Live OneCare came in last place overall with a piteous 82.40% detection rate.

Live OneCare also failed to detect many polymorphic viruses (same virus, different version) such as W32/Detnat, W32/Bakaver, W32/Zelly, W32/Etap, and W32/Deadcode.

The AV-Comparatives.org team consists of Andreas Clementi, (Senior Tester & Project Manager), Peter Stelzhammer, Jaider Manfred (Senior Virus Analyst), Gerhard Prossliner (Junior Virus Analyst) and Gerhard Stocker (Virus Analyst & IT consultant), and posts quarterly results of the top anti-virus products against a list of over a million forms of malicious viruses, worms, etc,.

First place in the study was awarded to G-Data Security’s AntiVirusKit, which happened to detect 99.5% of all the samples. Symantec’s Norton antivirus and McAfee’s VirusScan came in 6th and 14th with a 96.83% and 91.63% detection rate, respectively.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 7:46 am under Antivirus, Microsoft, Security, Software.  Print This Post

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