AV-Test.org - Put to the Test: 19 Android Security Apps for Consumer Users and Corpor

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Put to the Test: 19 Android Security Apps for Consumer Users and Corporate Users

The number of mobile threats for Android is growing daily. As the standard protection measures from Google are not sufficient, a good security app ought to be on duty on every consumer or business Android smartphone. AV-TEST examined and evaluated 19 security applications for mobile Android devices in the lab. For many apps, the results could not be better, but for Google standard protection in particular, the findings can be labelled as mediocre.

If cyber criminals attack a mobile device, the object is often not to steal the data but to harness the computing power of the mobile device, with the aim of using it as a bot, for example. After all, mobile devices are generally available 24/7. Thousands of such bots are then put to work, pinging websites, for example, and overloading them during a DDoS attack. Naturally, that is only one sample scenario of what attackers can do with a mobile device. There have also been targeted attacks with ransomware on corporate devices, as they often offer connectivity to corporate networks – an additional "door" for an attack.

But all these horror scenarios can be prevented with extremely high probability using security software for Android devices. That is why the laboratory of AV-TEST tested 19 protection apps for Android in terms of their protection, performance and usability, along with other functions. Three of the apps are intended for corporate users, the additional 16 for use on consumer smartphones and also on devices in small enterprises.

19 security apps put to a test in the lab

Every security app is required to pass three major test phases: protection, performance and usability. In the test of apps for corporate users, the evaluation table shows the products from Dr.Web and Total Defense compared to Google Play Protect.

Among the security applications for consumer users, the lineup of apps included AhnLab, Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, F-Secure, G DATA, Google, Ikarus, Kaspersky, McAfee, Norton, Protected.net, securiON, Sophos and Trend Micro. 12 of these apps concluded the test with the maximum score of 18. Two other applications came in at an excellent 17.5 and 17 points.

Among the apps for corporate users, the security solution from Total Defense came in best with the maximum achievable 18 points. The app from Dr.Web followed with what was still a good result of 16 points. The protection service Google Play Protect, included for comparison, was only able to muster 14 points.
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