One of the many individual tests involved in AV-Test certification measures how well products stand up to zero-day attacks—viruses or other threats so new that no antivirus signature exists. AV-Test CEO Andreas Marx noted that the 25 consumer products in the current test averaged 92 percent detection of zero-day attacks. "This means," said Marx "that one out of ten malware attacks succeeded." He also pointed out that while the products averaged 91 percent cleanup of existing infections, many didn't remove all traces. "Only 60% could be put back in a condition similar to the pre-infection state," Marx observed.

Certification Failed
Products can earn six points each for repair of existing malware infestations, protection against new attacks, and overall usability. Here usability means the product doesn't slow system performance and doesn't falsely report valid programs or activities as malicious. In order to receive certification, a product must earn a total of 11 points.

Just as in the previous test, Microsoft didn't make the cut, though with ten points it came close. PC Tools also failed with ten points.

The big loser this time around was AhnLab. In the previous test AhnLab squeaked by with 11 points. The latest test saw that score drop to 8.5 points, well below the certification cutoff. This decline was entirely due to poor performance in the area of repairing the effects of malware infestation; AhnLab declined from 4.5 points in the previous test to 2.0 points this time around. This result is totally in line with PCMag's own malware removal tests.

Winners Overall
Marx pointed out that "more products than usual had difficulties to meet our high standards and therefore failed receiving the AV-TEST certification." However, I find that the average of all scores is nearly a half-point higher than in the last test. BullGuard, ESET, Norman, and Qihoo all scores 1.5 points higher, and Panda pulled up its score by a full two points.

Not surprisingly, the top scores of 16.5 points went to Bitdefender. Bitdefender took the top combined score for tests in 2012, winning AV-Test's security suite Endurance test. Kaspersky and Norton came in second, with 16 points each.

While the three-part AV-Test evaluation isn't entirely based on whole-product dynamic testing, it comes much closer to matching real-world user experience than a simple static malware detection test. A product that earns top scores from AV-Test definitely won't disappoint.

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