Even as AMTSO attempts to bring some qualified and competent guidance to testing methodologies, and individuals with an agenda or paranoia invent stories about why it is not good, we see more completely incompetent testing. I refer this time to the test that Steve Ragan wrote about at http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201031/5979/Anti-Virus-industry-lacking-when-it-comes-to-detection-says-report. The test performed by Cyveillance, who

No-one believes that AMTSO has all the answers and can “fix” testing all by itself, but it has compiled and generated resources that have made good testing practice far more practicable and understandable. The way for testers (and others) to improve those resources is by talking to and working with AMTSO in a spirit of co-operation: the need for transparency is not going to go away.

Kevin Townsend asks whether AMTSO (the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization) is “a serious attempt to clean up anti-malware testing; or just a great big con?” I posted a lengthy response to that on the AMTSO blog here…

Larry Seltzer posted an interesting item yesterday.  The article on "SW Tests Show Problems With AV Detections " is  based on an "Analyst's Diary" entry called "On the way to better testing." Kaspersky did something rather interesting, though a little suspect. They created 20 perfectly innocent executable files, then created fake detections for ten of them.

We have just come across a Buyer’s Guide published in the March 2010 issue of PC Pro Magazine, authored by Darien Graham-Smith, PC Pro’s Technical Editor. The author aims to give advice on which anti-malware product is the best for consumer users, and we  acknowledge that the article includes some good thoughts and advice, but

I recently made a presentation to  the Special Interest Group in Software Testing of the BCS Chartered Institute for IT (formerly better known as the British Computer Society). The PDF version of the slide deck is now up at: http://www.eset.com/download/whitepapers/Curious_Act_Of_Anti_Malware_Testing.pdf The presentation outlines some of the problems with anti-malware testing and summarizes the mission and principles of

Some readers will be aware of my long-standing connection with the Anti-Virus Information Exchange Network (AVIEN) at http://www.avien.net (I hold the title of Chief Operations Officer there). AVIEN has now instigated a member’s blog at http://www.avien.net/blog, and I’ve put up a couple of blogs today on testing to help kick it off (Andrew Lee, my former

One of the more interesting things to happen to me in the past few months – well, that I’m going to talk about in public – is that I was elected to the Board of Directors of AMTSO (The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization). Interesting and scary: the first couple of months have seen me at

Microsoft is releasing a beta of their new antivirus product. Previously Microsoft announced that they would discontinue OneCare. The choice of the name “Security Essentials” is amusing. I’m not in the camp of those who think that you can’t have “Microsoft” and “security” in the same sentence, but just the same, Microsoft does say “If

Yes, I’ve used that pun before, but I can’t resist using it again now that I’m back from the EICAR conference. I actually got back a couple of days ago, but I was sidetracked by some urgent administrivia and dental treatment. I’m having bacon and eggs for breakfast, my first pet’s name was Stuart Little