VB100 certification report April 2019

Martijn Grooten

Virus Bulletin

Copyright © 2019 Virus Bulletin


 

Introduction

Malware has been causing problems for computer users for more than three decades, and anti-virus (or anti-malware) products have played an important part in mitigating those problems, initially taking on the leading role in protection and now taking more of a supporting role in amongst a cast of other forms of defence.

For more than two decades, Virus Bulletin has been testing anti-malware products, reporting on their performance as both the threat landscape and the products themselves have evolved, and has provided the VB100 certification scheme as a mark of distinction for those products that live up to expectation. The VB100 logo is the 'stamp of approval' conferred on products that satisfy a minimum standard of detecting malicious executables that have recently been seen in the wild, while blocking few to no legitimate programs.

This report details the performance of 34 anti-malware products from 31 different vendors tested during March and April 2019.

 

The VB100 set-up

In the VB100 test, a copy of the product to be tested is installed on two platforms: Windows 10 and Windows 7. On each platform, and at three different times in the test, the product is asked to scan both the latest version of the WildList and a selection of clean files taken from Virus Bulletin's own set of files belonging to widely used legitimate software.

A legitimate file that is blocked at least once is considered a false positive, while a WildList file that isn't blocked is considered a miss.

A product achieves a VB100 certification if:

  • No more than 0.5% of WildList samples are missed

and

  • No more than 0.01% of legitimate files are blocked

For full details, we refer to the VB100 methodology on the Virus Bulletin website: https://www.virusbulletin.com/testing/vb100/vb100-methodology/vb100-methodology-ver1-1/. This test used version 1.1 of the VB100 methodology.

 

Diversity Test

The malware part of the VB100 certification uses the WildList, a regularly updated list of extremely well-vetted malware samples, guaranteed to have been spotted in the wild multiple times. This makes them very suitable for a certification test like VB100.

The 'Diversity Test' looks at products' detection of another set of recent malware samples, to acknowledge the fact that products detect malware samples beyond a standard set of samples, and provides a measure of that detection.

 

Products & results

Products were allowed to download updates during the course of the test. The version numbers listed in the results that follows refer to those at the start of the test.

 

Adaware Antivirus Free

Windows 7 version 12.6.1005.11662  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 12.6.1005.11662
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 98.94%

 

Adaware Antivirus Pro

Windows 7 version 12.6.1005.11662 04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 12.6.1005.11662
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 98.94%

 

AhnLab V3 Internet Security 9.0

Windows 7 version 9.0.53.1  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 9.0.53.1
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000% 
Diversity Test rate 100.00%

 

Arcabit AntiVirus

Windows 7 version 2019.03.08  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 2019.03.09
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 100.00%

 

Avast Free Antivirus

Windows 7 version 19.3.2369  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 19.3.2369 
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 100.00%

 

AVG Internet Security

Windows 7 version 19.3.3084  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 19.3.3084 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 100.00%

 

Cynet 360

Windows 7 version 8.3.52.210  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 8.3.52.214 
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.06%

 

Defenx Security Suite

Windows 7 version 15.1.0112  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 15.1.0112 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.65%

 

Emsisoft Anti-Malware

Windows 7 version 2019.2.0.9269  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 2019.2.0.9269 
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 100.00%

 

eScan Internet Security Suite for Windows

Windows 7 version 14.0.1400.2029  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 14.0.1400.2029 
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.88% 

 

ESET Internet Security

Windows 7 version 12.0.31.0  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 12.0.31.0 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 100.00%

 

ESTsecurity ALYac

Windows 7 version 3.0.1.3.31873  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 3.0.1.3.31873 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.06%

 

Exosphere Endpoint Protection

Windows 7 version 8.3.52.58  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 8.3.52.216 
WildList detection 99.9%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 98.82%

 

Faronics Anti-Virus

Windows 7 version 4.20.3102.471  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 4.20.3102.471 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.88% 

 

FireEye Endpoint Security

Windows 7 version 29.0.0 04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 29.0.0 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000% 
Diversity Test rate 99.06% 

 

Fortinet FortiClient

Windows 7 version 5.6.2.1117  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 5.6.2.1117 
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.88% 

 

G DATA Antivirus

Windows 7 version 25.5.0.2 04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 25.5.0.4
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.88%

 

Heimdal Thor Vigilance

Windows 7 version 2.5.173.3000  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 2.5.173.3000 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000% 
Diversity Test rate 98.94% 

 

IKARUS anti.virus

Windows 7 version 2.19.14  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 2.19.14 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.65%

 

K7 Total Security

Windows 7 version 15.1.0355  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 15.1.0355 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.65% 

 

Kaspersky Endpoint Security 10 for Windows

Windows 7 version 11.0.0.6499  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 11.0.0.6499 
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 100.00%

 

NANO Antivirus

Windows 7 version 1.0.134.90112  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 1.0.134.90112 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.003%
Diversity Test rate 99.29%

 

PCProtect

Windows 7 version 4.13.37  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 4.13.37 
WildList detection 99.9%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.29%

 

Rising Security Cloud Client

Windows 7 version 3.0.0.85  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 3.0.0.85 
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 77.76%

 

Scanguard

Windows 7 version 4.13.37  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 4.13.37 
WildList detection 99.9% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.29%

 

TACHYON Endpoint Security

Windows 7 version 5.0.0.57  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 5.0.0.57 
WildList detection 99.9%
False positive rate 0.004%
Diversity Test rate 98.24%

 

TeamViewer Endpoint Protection

Windows 7 version  1.0.158353 04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version  1.0.158353
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.06%

 

Tencent PC Manager

Windows 7 version 12.3.26600.901  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 12.3.26601.901 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 100.00% 

 

TotalAV

Windows 7 version 4.13.37  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 4.13.37 
WildList detection 99.9%
False positive rate 0.000% 
Diversity Test rate 99.29% 

 

 

Total Defense Premium

Windows 7 version 9.0.0.747  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 9.0.0.747 
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000% 
Diversity Test rate 99.06%

 

Total Defense Unlimited V11

Windows 7 version 11.0.0.775  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 11.0.0.775 
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.06% 

 

VIPRE Advanced Security

Windows 7 version 11.0.3.20  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 11.0.3.20 
WildList detection 100.0%
False positive rate 0.000% 
Diversity Test rate 100.00%

 

VirIT eXplorer PRO

Windows 7 version 8.8.82  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 8.8.83
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 61.41%

 

Wontok SafeCentral Security Suite

Windows 7 version 2.0.1548  04-19.jpg
Windows 10 version 2.0.1548 
WildList detection 100.0% 
False positive rate 0.000%
Diversity Test rate 99.88% 

 

Appendix 1: products not certified

Cyren failed to achieve VB100 certification in this test because its number of false positives was just above the threshold for VB100 certification.

 

Appendix 2: excluded parts

  • For Adaware Antivirus Free and Adaware Antivirus Pro, the results of the Diversity Test on Windows 7 were discarded due to technical issues.
  • For Kaspersky Endpoint Security 10 for Windows, the results of the Diversity Test on Windows 10 were discarded due to technical issues.

 

Appendix 3: sample set sizes

The WildList contained 2,341 samples. The set of clean files used for the false positive test contained 100,000 files, of which 29,187 were portable executable (PE) files. The set used for the Diversity Test contained 850 samples.

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