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Proactive Security Challenge 64 (2011/12/01 11:26)
Proactive Security Challenge 64 starts and it is not just an update to another platform.
Yes, one of the changes is that the 32-bit Windows XP SP3 platform used in the original Proactive Security Challenge is replaced with 64-bit Windows 7 SP1 platform, but that is not the only change. Naturally, Proactive Security Challenge 64 uses Security Software Testing Suite 64 that we presented last time. The new suite comes with lots of improvements, new and harder tests. The structure of levels has been carefully redesigned so that in Proactive Security Challenge 64 the very bad products will still score very low, sometimes possibly little better than in the original Proactive Security Challenge; the products of medium quality should score better, sometimes much better; and the very good and excellent products will have it much harder to achieve the perfect score. So, for most of the products, the challenge is easier and will allow better scoring, but for the top products it will be harder to achieve the same score as before, at least at the beginning. In other words, the new suite and the new system of levels is better balanced than before.
We start with just four products, but in a couple of weeks there will be more. The results of Jetico Personal Firewall confirm that it is not that easy to get really high score. The performance of the new ESET Smart Security 5 suggests that its vendor might want to join the club but it will take some time before its engine matures. The results of McAfee Total Protection and Panda Global Protection are not surprising. Unless a big change happens here, they will be on the bottom of the result table. See the first results of Proactive Security Challenge 64 yourself.
Security Software Testing Suite 64 (2011/11/07 09:31)
Recently Windows 7 became the number one operating system on desktops. There are many sources that present Windows 7 as the market leading system ahead of Windows XP. Other sources, however, still present Windows XP as the most used operating system on desktops. In any case, Windows 7 is more and more popular choice for desktop users and it is the right time for us to react to this evolution.
For quite a long time we have been testing security products in our Proactive Security Challenge project on 32-bit Windows XP platform. In the next couple of weeks we will upgrade to a new platform – 64-bit Windows 7. The Security Software Testing Suite developed for Proactive Security Challenge attempted to exploit every possible feature of Windows XP operating system in order to bypass the protection implemented by security products. Since then the Windows operating system core has improved a lot and Windows 7 mitigates many of Windows XP features that could serve as easy targets for malware writers. If we wanted to upgrade to a new platform we had to follow these improvements. This is why we have developed a completely new testing suite that we call Security Software Testing Suite 64.
The code of Security Software Testing Suite 64 has been completely redesigned. It fully supports Unicode and all its tests run on 64-bit Windows 7 platform. Many of the tests were removed because their techniques were not compatible with the new platform, other tests were improved, and of course some of the tests and techniques are completely new. Having the new suite is the first step of our upgrade process. The current Proactive Security Challenge will be replaced with Proactive Security Challenge 64 very soon.
This upgrade will again raise the bar for security software vendors. Due to the nature of 64-bit Windows operating system some protection methods used by security software vendors on the 32-bit platform are no longer valid on the 64-bit platform. It can be said that if a product is able to protect against some kind of malware technique on the 64-bit platform it is likely that the product will be effective against this attacking technique on the 32-bit platform too, but not vice versa. This is why the results of the new tests on 64-bit Windows 7 will be much more valuable to the consumers than the old ones. And if we also consider that there are many new and previously unseen techniques implemented in the new suite, it will be pretty hard to succeed for the security software vendors in our new challenge.
Recent challenge results (2011/06/20 16:00)
In past weeks and months we have performed several tests of the latest versions of security suites and products in Proactive Security Challenge. Comodo Internet Security is still the only product that reached the perfect score against the latest set of tests. PC Tools Internet Security, Online Solutions Security Suite, Outpost Security Suite (both Pro and Free versions), Kaspersky Internet Security, Malware Defender and Privatefirewall are products that reached the Excellent level of protection — i.e. their final score is over 90 %. Well done to their vendors, it is not easy to get on this level.
Recently, we have started our work on the new testing suite for the challenge. This will be another big step for us but there is a lot to do and the whole process can take several months. Before the new suite is ready, we will keep testing the products with the current version of the suite.
PC Tools jumps to second place (2011/01/25 10:47)
PC Tools Internet Security replaces PC Tools Firewall Plus in our challenge. PC Tools Internet Security 2011 has been tested and reached the Excellent level of protection in today's testing. With 99 % it is on the second place in our results table. Good job! The complete results are available on Proactive Security Challenge pages.
Free Outpost reached excellent results (2010/12/21 13:00)
It has been a while but the free version of Outpost is back on top. We have tested the very new Outpost Security Suite Free, which replaces the older Outpost Firewall Free, and its results belong among the best we have seen in Proactive Security Challenge. Congratulations!
Proactive Security Challenge vs. real malware (2010/11/01 09:00)
Proactive Security Challenge is a project devoted mostly to testing abilities of security software to protect against actions of malware. Currently, Proactive Security Challenge consists of 148 different tests. Sometimes we hear people arguing that the techniques used in our tests do not correspond with techniques used by the real malware. In order to find out how much Proactive Security Challenge reflects the real world of malware, we have performed the following research.
We have collected a set of 20 malware samples that were not detected by two popular anti-virus engines. This means that downloading these samples to the computer and executing them would be possible even with a fully updated anti-virus installed. Then we have run the samples and analyzed the techniques they used. The results are as follows.
Online Armor temporarily disqualified (2010/09/07 07:28)
Different Internet Experience Ltd. has established number of business connections on the field of Windows security. Our clients and partners, vendors of the market leading security products, benefit from our testing and research services. Many of their products implement the technology that was designed, developed or tested in our labs.
One of our business connections, partnership with Tall Emu Pty Ltd, the original vendor of Online Armor, has been ended recently. Our break-up did not go well. Our company raised claims against Tall Emu Pty Ltd closely related to Online Armor products that have not been satisfied and hence the whole dispute will probably take a long time to solve. In order to protect our company we are forced to temporarily disqualify Online Armor products from our projects. Online Armor will be returned as soon as the dispute is solved or when there is a significant move in the case that is likely to solve the case in a short period of time. We apologize to our visitors for any inconvenience.
Transfering to new servers (2010/08/16 17:50)
Due to a great increase in the traffic to our websites, we have to transfer our projects to a new hosting. During the next few days our websites may be unavailable from time to time. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for understanding and patience.
Outpost 7 to join excellent products (2010/06/29 14:28)
Outpost Security Suite Pro 7 has been tested in Proactive Security Challenge and reached the fourth place with the Excellent 97% score. Comodo Internet Security, Online Solutions Security Suite and Online Armor Premium still remain the top 3 products in our challenge.
Online Armor Premium and Online Solutions Security Suite (2010/05/23 11:56)
Our visitors have sent us many requests to test Online Armor Premium against the latest set of tests and also Online Solutions Security Suite, a new security suite on the market. If you are interested how these two performed, check out the latest news and results of Proactive Security Challenge!