AV-TEST research puts macOS security products to test

Jun 22, 2018 09:05 GMT  ·  By

They say Macs do not require antivirus software given the security features and restrictions bundled into macOS, but recent cyber-attacks have certainly proved otherwise.

And now a research conducted by German antivirus testing institute AV-TEST helped determine which of these security products developed for macOS can truly block the existing threats.

In the case of home users, AV-TEST evaluated eight different security solutions, out of which no less than four got the maximum score by getting 6 out of 6 points in the three tests for protection, performance, and usability.

Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, Intego VirusBarrier, Symantec Norton Security, and Trend Micro Antivirus have also performed flawlessly in this research. Somewhat surprising is that Kaspersky lost 0.5 points in performance tests to achieve an overall rating of 17.5 points.

Avira Antivirus Pro was one point behind with 16.5 points, while Avast Security and F-Secure Safe were the last products in the charts with 16 and 15.5 points, respectively.

As far as malware detection rates are concerned, six out of the eight security products tested achieve a 100 percent score. Avira Antivirus Pro lagged behind with 98.4 percent, while F-Secure Safe got the lowest score with 96.4 percent.

Business security products

When it comes to business users, three out of four products got the top score, namely Bitdefender Endpoint Security for Mac, McAfee Endpoint Security for Mac, and SentinelOne Next Generation Endpoint Security. Sophos’ Central Endpoint wasn’t very far behind with a final score of 17 points after losing 1 point in performance tests.

Again, Bitdefender and Sophos topped the charts for malware detection rates as well, while McAfee was third with a nearly maximum score of 99.8 percent. SentinelOne’s product was fourth with 99 percent.

The research was carried out on macOS High Sierra and took place in two different parts in April and May using the latest versions of the tested products at the time of the evaluation.

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