14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s free security offering designed for customers running genuine versions of Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP has received the VB100 award for the August 2010 Edition of Virus Bulletin.
Microsoft Security Essentials has managed to successfully pass through the tests from VB, noted Microsoft’s Eric Foster, which indicated that testing methodologies set up to measure the effectiveness of security solutions vary.
“In order for a product to be awarded the VB100 certification, it needs to detect 100% of the WildList malware samples (a prevalent malware subset contributed by a group of researchers in AV community) and must not have any false positives (FP or incorrect detections) on the Virus Bulletin clean file collection,” Foster noted.
Virus Bulletin revealed that Microsoft Security Essentials had no problems dealing with the malicious code samples that were thrown against it.
“Detection rates were strong as ever...with no problems in the WildList or clean sets, Microsoft earns another VB100 award with ease,” VB said.
A number of competitive AV products also received the August 2010 VB100 award, but of course, MSE has a big advantage over some of them, namely the fact that it is free.
“Microsoft products including Microsoft Security Essentials and Forefront Client Security, have received VB100 awards since June 2007, demonstrating Microsoft’s dedication to quality and our commitment to providing effective anti-malware protection to consumers and enterprise customers alike,” Foster explained.
The Redmond company is currently hard at work on the next generation of Microsoft Security Essentials. The Beta development milestone of Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 is already available for download to early adopters.
In addition, in just three days, on August 16th, the software giant plans to release and update to the antimalware engine in Microsoft Security Essentials 1.1.
“Not sure how many of you know about the VB100 award but it’s a public test conducted by Virus Bulletin, a highly reputable testing organization in the industry, designed to measure the detection effectiveness and quality of antivirus (AV) products,” Foster said.
“The most important validation of AV quality comes from independent certification organizations like Virus Bulletin,” he added.
Microsoft Security Essentials is available for download here.
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