Microsoft has reacted to reports that its antimalware software was not performing ‘too well’ in the tests performed by AV-Test.org. AV-Test.org, is an independent IT Security organization, which conducts antivirus software tests regularly every month. According to it, Microsoft’s antimalware software failed to win the AV-Test certificate for the 2nd consecutive month due to poor performance.
Microsoft in a blog post has said:
Our review showed that 0.0033 percent of our Microsoft Security Essentials and Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection customers were impacted by malware samples not detected during the test. In addition, 94 percent of the malware samples not detected during the test didn’t impact our customers.
Microsoft spelled out some keys points which need to be noted about the test:
- AV-Test reports on samples hit/missed by category. Microsoft reports based on customer impact.
- AV-Test’s test results indicate that our products detected 72% of all “0-day malware” using a sample size of 100 pieces of malware. Microsoft learns from telemetry from hundreds of millions of systems around the world that 99.997 percent of its customers hit with any 0-day did not encounter the malware samples tested in this test.
- AV-Test’s test results indicate that our products missed 9 percent of “recent malware” using a sample size of 216,000 pieces of malware. Microsoft learns from telemetry that 94 percent of these missed malware samples were never encountered by any of its customers.
Microsoft added that it is difficult for independent antimalware testing organizations to devise tests that are consistent with the real-world conditions. In fact, AV-Test too had acknowledged this fact and shared some of the difficulties & shortfalls in many of the independent industry tests in a presentation they gave at the AVAR Security Conference in 2012.
Nevertheless, Microsoft has acknowledged the importance that customers give to Industry testing feedback, and is committed to reducing its 0.0033% margin to zero.
