14 DAY TRIAL // A security vendor submitted for performance evaluation from AV-Comparatives a product version that is not regularly available to its customers, created specifically for achieving better results.
AV-Comparatives is a reputable antivirus testing organization based in Austria, whose assessment methodology is recognized by big names in the security industry. Users also trust its results and rely on them for choosing the appropriate solution for their systems.
Product version was not widely available
Trying to influence the results this way would annul all efforts of analyzing the capabilities of the products as objectively as possible, and it would have a direct negative effect on the tester itself.
The evaluation is based on certain rules that vendors have to respect for their products to be accepted for testing.
However, it appears that one vendor broke the rules and delivered a product version whose availability to the public was limited.
“It has been found that a product submitted for testing by the vendor had been specifically engineered for the major testing labs, including AV-C; public availability of this version was limited,” AV-Comparatives wrote on Sunday on their Facebook page.
A second vendor is under investigation, too
This may not be the only incident of this kind, though, as the independent tester says that another vendor is currently being investigated for the same type of conduct.
No names have been disclosed, which may be interpreted as a warning to other vendors not to create special variants for testing purposes only, and submit the same releases as those delivered to their clients. Also, it is unclear what the vendor did to achieve a better score.
The tester has not announced a decision regarding the measures that will be taken against the cheater(s) and says that it would make an announcement when the investigation of the second vendor’s actions completes.
Other independent antivirus testing labs, such as Germany-based AV-TEST, have been notified of the incident so that they start their own investigation.