How users are (and are not) blocking malware

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	ON SECURITY How users are (and are not) blocking malware
	By Lincoln Spector Every Windows user has some sort of antivirus and security software installed — or at least everybody should. But what protection do they use, and how do they use it? And does the software do any good? To help answer that question, AV-Comparatives does an annual survey of computer users. Here’s a summary of the latest report.

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The full text of this column is posted at windowssecrets.com/top-story/how-users-are-and-are-not-blocking-malware/ (opens in a new window/tab).

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…just don’t block like Betty White…

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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Yes, it’s too bad AV-Comparatives didn’t run their survey in a way that brought in a wider swath of users. Even so, the pie chart shows but you don’t mention the “Confident Users” category, which together with the basic users, makes up nearly one-third of the respondents. In looking through AV-C’s article and tables, I would have like to see a closer look at that combined group, i.e., non professionals and enthusiasts. For instance, I am intrigued by the fact that Comodo CIS, even its paid version, is not among any of the top-10 choice lists. I was under the impression that between free and paid, it had drawn a fair portion of the market. But looking at the stats elsewhere now, its market leadership is in SSL Certificate Authentification; its share of the anti-malware is hard to determine because the available stats refer to anti-virus products not suites, but it’s the latter that most Comodo users grab.

Btw, would you clarify something about terminology: some of the programs listed are security suites and some call themselves anti-virus. The first typically include firewalls, but what about the a-v ones these days – are they “simply” a-v or has the terminology changed, and really they are more inclusive?

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It seems kind of curious that AV-Comparatives did not include any Symantec products in their testing. The majority of my business and enterprise clients use some form of Symantec Endpoint Protection and it has appears to do a pretty good job of detection and interdiction. Still have to use Malwarebytes on occasion for full removal of malware.

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It seems kind of curious that AV-Comparatives did not include any Symantec products in their testing. The majority of my business and enterprise clients use some form of Symantec Endpoint Protection and it has appears to do a pretty good job of detection and interdiction. Still have to use Malwarebytes on occasion for full removal of malware.

I fully agree. Thanks.

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It seems kind of curious that AV-Comparatives did not include any Symantec products in their testing.

Not by choice. It was Symantec itself that declined to participate in the AV-Comparatives tests (since 2012).

Have a look at this CNet post for more info (because, unfortunately, the original post by AV-Comparatives is no longer available).

Also, see this Why is Norton not participating in AV Comparatives testing? thread in the Norton Community forum. It shows Symantec wouldn’t answer their own user’s queries about the decision to remove Symantec Norton products from testing by AV-Comparatives.

Hope this helps…

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It seems kind of curious that AV-Comparatives did not include any Symantec products in their testing. The majority of my business and enterprise clients use some form of Symantec Endpoint Protection and it has appears to do a pretty good job of detection and interdiction. Still have to use Malwarebytes on occasion for full removal of malware.

If I’m not mistaken, Lincoln Spector mentioned earlier why Symantec was not mentioned in the AV-Comparatives listing. Symantec believes static tests are not appropriate. He also said he had written AV-Comparatives asking why MBAM was not included. At the time of his earlier article on antimalware, he had not received a reply.

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If I’m not mistaken, Lincoln Spector mentioned earlier why Symantec was not mentioned in the AV-Comparatives listing. Symantec believes static tests are not appropriate. He also said he had written AV-Comparatives asking why MBAM was not included. At the time of his earlier article on antimalware, he had not received a reply.

Are we talking about the same How users are (and are not) blocking malware article? I can’t see any mention of Symantec (or Norton).

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The comment in the article that…”In the organization’s most recent real-world test report (pdf), three vendors won in a dead heat: Bitdefender, Kaspersky, and Panda.” is misleading.
They also deduct points for False Positives and in fact Panda was downgraded for that very reason.

Also, I can’t see the point of stating one piece of anecdotal evidence to disparage Kaspersy on system impact(even if the evidence is from the WS Editor).
In the AV-Comparitives Performance Test linked in the article, Kaspersky rated third, ahead of Bitdefender and Panda.
Anyone wanting to use AV-Comparitives to decide on their product of choice should obviously read the full tests data.

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“Only 11 percent claimed they hadn’t been attacked within the last six months.”
———–
They need to expand their survey. The last time I actually caught a virus trying to get on my computer (it was a Word Macro virus from a file I brought home from work) was 1997.

I have honestly not come across an infected file nor downloaded anything (that I am aware of) in all that time since. Perhaps I am not visiting the right sites?

I’ve always wondered where do people go to get infected?

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Virtualize, virtualize, virtualize. Yes; I use privoxy and a few other ad blockers, but, my main defense against all attacks is virtualization. I do all my browsing withing a virtual machine OS and even within that OS, I run Sandboxie (so I’m double-virtualized). I regularly recover my VM to a golden set point too to mitigate attacks that may not be protected my this scheme (such a possible drive-by keyloggers). It’s worked for me since 2008 and I have no plans on changing it for my needs.

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Circle graph keys leave a lot to be desired on the graphics for this article. The color squares are so extremely small, and even blowing up the page doesn’t help to distinguish between the colors. I know I am getting older, but it seems this could be much better. I hope in the future any circle graphs are keyed in a more useful manner.

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I’d appreciate hearing what antimalware programs others are using on iPhone. Thanks in advance for your responses.

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Rick, Lincoln mentioned this earlier, in July 2015.

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Rick, Lincoln mentioned this earlier, in July 2015.

No wonder I couldn’t see it in the current article. Thought I was going blind.

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ON SECURITY How users are (and are not) blocking malware By Lincoln Spector “Over a two-week period this past December, the organization asked visitors to its site to fill out a security questionnaire. It received 2,022 responses . . .”

You do realize this survey has absolutely no statistical significance or reliability? Surveying a group of people that happen upon a website, and also not completely verifying their authenticity, is in no way an accurate reflection of how computer users in the rest of the population encounter malware and use anti-virus software.

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You do realize this survey has absolutely no statistical significance or reliability? Surveying a group of people that happen upon a website, and also not completely verifying their authenticity, is in no way an accurate reflection of how computer users in the rest of the population encounter malware and use anti-virus software.

In fairness, Mr Spector went to some lengths to qualify the quality of the “survey”.
Have you a better source of information to determine how “the rest of the population” use av software?

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