Jakarta - How can users know the effectiveness of antiviral agents used? Do you have to wait for the computer virus attack first? Fortunately, because there is a recognized safety testing in the industry.Testing was, for example, is conducted by AV-comparatives or by AV-Test.org. Both tests have been recognized by the industry and believed it could find out how powerful an antivirus software.
During recent years, the landscape distribution of a computer security threat has undergone fundamental changes. If you had only a small number of threats that could affect millions of users, this time millions of new threats appear each month and are threatened only a pinch of users around the world.
The following data from our analysts at Symantec may illustrate how big this issue: during 2009, Symantec software has blocked more than 2.7 billion effort to attack around the world. This means that, with this condition, the solution 'just antivirus' traditionally been less effective.
To overcome this, Symantec has made a change to the approach to defense-in-depth. This approach uses multiple layers of security to protect users.
AV-Comparative Testing and AV-Test.org has also reflect changes in testing methods for evaluating the comprehensive protection offered by the latest security products.
Test results from two independent institutions that demonstrate the ability Symantec security products. Anugerah Best Anti-Virus Product of 2009 provided AV-comparatives in Symantec, the first position is also found in real-world testing conducted by AV-Test.org.
Award from AV-comparatives reflect the ability of various tests on the main areas of security, in terms of protection and performance. While testing conducted by AV-Test.org is the protection of the daily activities of users, such as browsing and downloading files.
Stephen Trilling, senior VP, Security Technology and Response, Symantec, said that tests conducted to evaluate the product's ability in dealing with real malware.
AV-comparatives
One type of award given by AV-comparatives is a gold medal for Best Anti-Virus Product of 2009. This award is the result of tests on the Norton AntiVirus and a few other vendors products against eight types of tests, including: On-Demand Malware Detection, On-Demand Proactive Malware Detection, False Positives, On-Demand Scanning Speed, Overall Performance (Low-Impact System) , On-Demand Applications Potentially Unwanted Detection, Malware Removal Capabilities and Dynamic Whole-Product Protection.
According to Andreas Clementi, chief executive officer, AV-comparatives, the overall outcome is good for Symantec, in 2009 the test, showing how its products have been doing a good job and balanced in terms of performance, a high detection rate and false-positive rate of low.
AV-Test.org
AV-Test.org recently testing a new version to answer the question how effective the antivirus and Internet security products to detect malicious programs that really new in everyday situations.
In that test security products tested 12 different. Symantec's Norton AntiVirus to detect 98 percent of the existing threat, this is the best of the 12 products tested.
Andreas Marx, chief executive officer, AV-Test.org says that this new test provides an opportunity for security products to try all of their protective coating. And, therefore, better protection of predicting what users will experience in the field everyday.
Currently, most computer users infected by malicious programs such as Internet-based attacks silently download (drive-by download) and social engineering-based attacks, often disguised as sly as a user clicks on a particular link. AV-Test.org attempt to create a test that can reflect the threats that exist today.
For three months, until December 2009, AV-Test.org test of security products to 10 new threats per day. Each sample is run on a clean machine and arranged in order to show how users can get the attack in real conditions.
This approach allows testing on all the different layers of protection from any security product, and not just one layer only. Throughout the testing, each product exposed to 600 different security threats, and also clean the file 400 to ensure no errors clean files detected as malware - aka False Positive (FP). In the test, the Symantec obtain the highest detection rate (98 percent) and the best FP.
Technology Behind the Product
The main technology behind a Symantec security solutions presented by the organization's Security Technology and Response (STAR). During 2009, STAR has developed and produced a number of security technologies so innovative that contribute to the protection of high value in the tests above.
Here are some technologies that:
- Reputation-Based Security: STAR has created a reputation-based technology that brings the knowledge of millions of Symantec users who participated to produce a safety rating which is very accurate for almost all jenus existing files on the Internet. This gives users the power to Symantec to make good choices on their software download and install on your computer.
- Advanced Heuristic Protection: STAR has introduced a series of heuristics to detect malicious programs that have not known before a malicious program is active and doing damage. This approach can detect malicious programs that really new and variants of spyware or adware without the need for 'fingerprints'. Things he did was look for suspicious process or series of instructions commonly used by malicious programs.
- Protection of Advanced Behavioral: STAR has redesigned the protection behavior (behavioral) Symantec, allowing it to recognize and block thousands of new variants of malware by analyzing the behavior of the software, all without traditional fingerprints.
- Engine Slim and Efficient: STAR optimize the main scan engine, helping Symantec products to be the fastest in the industry.
(Choi)
