AV-Test.org - 20 Protection Packages Included in the Endurance Test

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Especially in times of Corona, consumer users are being subjected to a vast onslaught of dangerous spam and malware. The 6-month endurance test from AV-TEST reveals which protection package is able to protect Windows 10 over a long period.

Spam with infected attachments or dangerous downloads are but a few of the risks facing the PCs of private users. Especially in times of Corona, attackers see many opportunities to prey on private data or to extort users with ransomware. Malware statistics at the end of 2019 showed a total of 1.001 billion registered malware samples. At the end of 2020, that number reached 1.139 billion samples – an increase of nearly 14 percent. In the endurance test from July to December 2020, nearly 40,000 proliferating and especially dangerous malware samples were applied – per product.

14 protection packages scored 17.5 to 18 points

The result shows that in the endurance test there are many protection packages that can stand up against an incredible number of malware samples, yet they do not bog down the Windows system or trigger false alarms. In the 6-month endurance test, each package had the opportunity to score up to 18 points: 6 points each for the three areas of protection, performance, and usability. A total of 4 packages achieved this outstanding feat. They are from F-Secure, McAfee, Microsoft and NortonLifeLock. Also scoring an excellent 17.8 points were the products from Avira, BullGuard, G Data, Kaspersky, Trend Micro and VIPRE Security. AhnLab, ESET, Avast and AVG followed with 17.7 and 17.5 points respectively. By comparison: In a classic monthly test, products achieving a score of 17.5 to 18 points even receive special recognition.

Coming in next were Bitdefender and Protected.net with 17.3 points, followed by K7 Computing with 17 points. The next echelon of packages from Microworld and Malwarebytes reached only 15.9 and 15.8 points. At the end of the ranking is PC Matic, scoring a mere 14.3 points.

When malware doesn't have a chance

The key element of the endurance test is the evaluation of a product's protection capability. Here is how the lab goes about it: In the real-world test, the experts use freshly-caught zero-day malware from emails and downloads. These brand-new malware samples are particularly dangerous and also cannot be easily detected by some programs. In the second test, involving the so-called reference set, the lab examines whether the products can also detect already registered malware. All the packages were required to successfully complete a round of testing each month and to detect, quarantine and delete nearly 40,000 malware samples.

More than half the participants, 11 to be exact, passed both test phases of protection evaluation absolutely error-free: Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, ESET, F-Secure, G Data, Kaspersky, McAfee, Microsoft, NortonLifeLock and Trend Micro detected all attackers 100 percent.

Whereas the remainder of the test field also managed the reference set error-free, there were issues in the real-world test. BullGuard, for example, detected 99.9 percent. AhnLab, Avira and VIPRE Security achieved high levels of 99.7 and 99.6 percent respectively. From Protected.net on down, the detection rate dropped considerably, however. Here, the results were only 98.4 percent. For K7 Computing, Malwarebytes, Microworld, and PC Matic, the detection rate dropped further from 98 all the way to 93.6 percent.
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