Seven Anti-Virus Programs Fail Windows 7 Test

Virus Bulletin conducted it’s most recent tests in November and the results were made available this month. The security research company evaluated 43 antimalware products (product submission deadline was October 28) for the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Professional.

Out of the 43 antimalware products, 36 products passed and 7 ( what a coincidence ) failed. The basic requirements for a product passing the test is detecting, both on demand and on access using its default settings, all malware known to be “In the Wild” at the time of the review, and not detecting any false positives when scanning a set of clean files.

Just under a fifth of the products unfortunately did not manage to meet these requirements: 36 products passed the test, leaving seven products to fail. Here are the ones that passed and failed, as well as the reason for not passing.

• Pass: Alwil avast! 4.8, Arcabit ArcaVir 2010, Authentium Command Anti-Malware, AVG Internet Security, Avira AntiVir Personal, Avira AntiVir Professional, BitDefender Antivirus 2010, Bullguard 8.7, eScan Internet Security Suite, ESET NOD32 Antivirus 5, Fortinet FortiClient, Frisk F-PROT, F-Secure Internet Security 2010, F-Secure Protection Services, GDATA AntiVirus 2010, K7 Total Security, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6, Kingsoft Anti-Virus 2010 Advanced, Kingsoft Anti-Virus 2010 Standard, McAfee Total Protection, McAfee VirusScan Enterprise, Microsoft Forefront Client Security, Microsoft Security Essentials, Nifty Corporation Security 24, PC Tools Internet Security, PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AV, Preventon Antivirus, Qihoo 360 Security, Quick Heal AntiVirus Lite, Sophos Endpoint Security and Control, Sunbelt Vipre, Symantec Endpoint Security 11, Trustport Antivirus 2009, VirusBuster Professional, and Webroot AntiVirus with SpySweeper.
• Fail: AhnLab V3Net I.S. 8.0 (one wildlist miss), CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2010 (three wildlist misses), CA Threat Manager (two wildlist misses), eEye Blink Professional (13 wildlist misses, 1 false positive), Filseclab Twister Anti-TrojanVirus (1920 wildlist misses, 2 false positives), Kingsoft Anti-Virus 2010 Swinstar (one wildlist miss), and Norman Security Suite (13 wildlist misses).

The majority of the security companies passed without any problem. Out of the ones that failed, i cant say any of those names are very familiar to me, but if you happen to be using any of them, perhaps you may look at changing your anti-virus. Microsoft’s new antivirus, Microsoft Security Essentials passed with flying colors, but this was to be expected as it would be quite an embarrassment for Microsoft if it hadn’t.