Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 receives the Gold Malware Treatment Award

[Denholm]

Link: anti-malware-test.com

Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management solutions, announces that Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 has received the Gold Malware Treatment Award from respected security software test laboratory Anti-Malware Test Lab.

More than 15 antivirus products, including Norton AntiVirus 2009, BitDefender Antivirus 2009 and Eset NOD32 Antivirus 3.0, participated in a series of tests evaluating the ability of the products to treat active infections. The computer used for testing was loaded with the Windows XP SP3 operating system. The tests were conducted by Anti-Malware Test Lab between September 15 and October 15, 2008 in accordance with a specially-developed methodology to test the ability of the popular antivirus products in combating malicious programs which had already penetrated the system and were hiding traces of their activities.

According to the test results, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 received the Gold Malware Treatment Award, along with five other products tested by Anti-Malware Test Lab. The rest of the participants, including McAfee VirusScan 2008, Eset NOD32 Antivirus 3.0 and BitDefender Antivirus 2009 did not pass the test and were therefore judged incapable of protecting a user?s computer from active infections.

Alexander Gostev, the Head of the Global Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky Lab, says that the ability of an antivirus program to treat infected computers has been the basic idea of antivirus from the very beginning of the IT industry. ?A modern antivirus must not only be a tool for preventing infection but it must also be a powerful instrument which can remove active infections if other security technologies fail?, said the expert. ?The test performed by Anti-Malware Test Lab demonstrates the difference in approaches of vendors in understanding the idea of antivirus protection. However, it is not enough to detect nonactive malicious code ? the incidents with malicious programs such as Rustok and Sinowal have already proved this. We are pleased to see the Kaspersky Lab product among the leaders of this test. It means we not only understand the need to have a balance between proactive technologies, signature-based detection and ability to treat infected computers, but we also keep the development of all components of an antivirus product at their highest levels.?

[webeagle12]

ugh time to dump NOD32 :( :(

[Berserk87]

(Y) kaspersky user.

[Denholm]

ugh time to dump NOD32 :( :(

I did that. Cost me plenty. I have two licenses for NOD32 that I am unlikely to ever use again.

[KevinN206]

It's hard to believe NOD32 would fail so miserably. I read their testing methodology:

Default settings recommended by the respective vendor were used when installing each antivirus product on the infected computer. All the actions recommended by each antivirus program (restarting the system, installing updates, etc.) were performed.

I am wondering if NOD32 comes with heuristic, adware/spyware/riskware, potentially unwanted applications, and potentially unsafe applications enabled by default. This *might* be why NOD32 got 0/15, which would be ridiculous. It is been a long time, so I don't remember if I enabled them manually or not.

It would also be nice if they differentiated between no detection or detected but failed to remove properly. They grouped both together.

[Pupik]

I purchased a nod32 license for a test, and now while it installed I always scan suspicious files that I download using this baby: http://www.virustotal.com/

And every time that nod32 doesn't find anything in the scan I performed on the file, virustotal sure does and Kaspersky always is one of the antiviruses that recognize the virus. I now just don't trust nod32 and waiting for my license to expire, to go back to Kaspersky.

edit: Here's an example of one such file: http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/c870ab3...5e4a1c17ae6b0af

Nod32 is one of the antiviruses that doesn't see it as a virus.

Edited November 14, 2008 by Pupik

[x-byte]

Why just mention Kaspersky in the title?

According to the test results, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 received the Gold Malware Treatment Award, along with five other products tested by Anti-Malware Test Lab

[Denholm]

Why just mention Kaspersky in the title?

Because I read the story at Kaspersky Lab's website first. ;)

[BrainDedd]

Why just mention Kaspersky in the title?

Agreed. I mean Dr. Web won a platinum and they only mention Kaspersky as the gold?

[Mercellus]

I'm pretty surprised by the results, NOD32 has been a highly regarded product for quite some time and it's odd to see that it ranks lower on the list... ESET seem to have dropped the ball with version 3.0, I've seen it cause some weird issues on Windows Vista SP1 64-bit (random blue screens when logging in, Windows services randomly failing, etc.)

[sjgore]

Pity the new Comodo Antivirus wasn't tested, it would have been interesting to see where it fitted in with the competition.

[mourad]

Those awards/tests have no credibility. They totally ignored other factors which make the difference between a good/not so good AV.

They focused mainly on scanning performance of old malware code, which was conceived years ago. While current malware are more sophisticated, stealth, hard to analyze (i.e this very test uses Rustok.a while there's the brand new c variant with some anti-debugging/anti-reversing features that no one yet has succeeded to break)..

If you really are a paranoid user, I suggest you plug out your internet connection cable. Because there's no AV/FW than can protect your data from at least half the malware out there.

On a further note, this month?Microsoft Patch Tuesdayi> release, fixes for the very fisrt time one of the vulns leading to full system takeover (SMBRelay BoF) that was publicly disclosed in 2001, and an exploit for this has been part of Metasploit since mid-last year. Now even with a "perfect" AV, your data still at stake.. plug off that cable and stop worrying.

[Ficman]

(Y) kaspersky user.

+1 Have been for awhile now... Very Sweet...

[NoLiMiT06]

I downloaded this and gave it a try...What a joke, it may protect like they say but it's such a system hog. NOD FTW!

[-KJ]

Those awards/tests have no credibility. They totally ignored other factors which make the difference between a good/not so good AV.

They focused mainly on scanning performance of old malware code, which was conceived years ago. While current malware are more sophisticated, stealth, hard to analyze (i.e this very test uses Rustok.a while there's the brand new c variant with some anti-debugging/anti-reversing features that no one yet has succeeded to break)..

If you really are a paranoid user, I suggest you plug out your internet connection cable. Because there's no AV/FW than can protect your data from at least half the malware out there.

On a further note, this month’s Microsoft Patch Tuesday release, fixes for the very fisrt time one of the vulns leading to full system takeover (SMBRelay BoF) that was publicly disclosed in 2001, and an exploit for this has been part of Metasploit since mid-last year. Now even with a "perfect" AV, your data still at stake.. plug off that cable and stop worrying.

Good thing I have WiFi :rofl:

But interesting read, thanks.

[mourad]

Good thing I have WiFi :rofl:

lol.. then your neighbor is probably watching your own pr0n collection :p

[(Spork)]

Dr.Web Anti-Virus <--------- :huh: this took top spot ? where did this come from

[Skulltrail-old]

(Y) kaspersky user.

+1

[Tehsplink]

:cool: Kaspersky user too, until something better comes out :D

[ambiance]

AntiViral Toolkit Pro saved me many times and I've been loyal to Kaspersky ever since.

[.Kompressor]

Its the best along with Nod32 at the moment at catching viruses/spyware and being uptodate with definitions.

The only problem with kaspersky is that sometimes it's updates cause BSOD on vista... stop 0x00000050

check their forums.. I just had one early this week on KAV 2009 antivirus only for vista

nasty.

[SinghKing]

Cool, I'm glad I made the right choice by switching from Mcafee to Kaspersky :)

[Mayhem]

nice to know, that's why i use this extension for firefox for some time now

Dr.Web anti-virus link checker - extension

:)

[+Warwagon MVC]

Kaspersky seems kind of expensive. How much does a renewal run you.. I can't seem to find it on their website.

Actually Avast scored just as well as Kaspersky and you can get that one for free!!

The one thing about nod, is they say you have to buy 2 license to install it on 2 computer, but if you install it on 2 computers with just 1 license and use the same user name pass on both, it works :|

Edited November 14, 2008 by warwagon

[Farstrider]

Kaspersky seems kind of expensive. How much does a renewal run you.. I can't seem to find it on their website.

Actually Avast scored just as well as Kaspersky and you can get that one for free!!

The one thing about nod, is they say you have to buy 2 license to install it on 2 computer, but if you install it on 2 computers with just 1 license and use the same user name pass on both, it works :|

Interestingly enough I am a reseller of Eset NOD32 Products. What I really like about the company is that they are very relaxed about how they allow you to use your discretion as regards selling their products.

We get given a certain amount of keys for our own use that we can use for ourselves and also to sell. We are allowed to use the same keys for different users and customers. They have basically told us not to misuse the privilege, other than that nothing else! I have been selling the product for years now and have never picked up any problems as regard licensing!