avast! Free Antivirus wins 12th straight VB100 award

PRAGUE, Czech Republic – avast! Free Antivirus won its twelfth straight VB100 award for malware detection for AVAST Software in the latest Virus Bulletin test. avast! Free Antivirus combined high scanning speed with very good detection skills that exceeded the best that many paid-for consumer and high-end business products could offer.
“We saw some stomping good scores, highly impressive in all sets. The WildList and clean sets were handled without a glitch, earning AVAST another VB100 award for its free product,” wrote John Hawes in his review in the Virus Bulletin. “The company boasts an impeccable 12 out of 12 record in the last two years of our comparatives.”
avast! caught all 100% of the In-the-wild viruses and scored a 98.94% on total detection. avast! also had a high score in proactive detection which tests the ability of an antivirus program to identify unknown viruses without a specific malware signature. Proactive detection shows the ability of avast! Free Antivirus to offer multilayer protection and technologies that go far beyond the simple signature detection of traditional programs.
Complimenting avast!’s high detection skills were its fast scanning speeds. Only one program out of the 69 tested, McAfee VirusScan Enterprise + AntiSpyware Enterprise 8.8, had a faster throughput speed than avast!. However avast! handily beat McAfee’s product in both detection and resource usage.
Test results showed that avast! provided quite fast scans without slowing the computer down. avast! had a miniscule 1% increase in RAM usage increase during scanning – the top score among all tested products.
Although a free consumer product, avast! still provided better detection than several antivirus products targeting the business market. avast! detection topped the results posted by McAfee VirusScan Enterprise and Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.
Virus Bulletin ran its test on computers running Windows XP SP3. Over 40% of all global computers use this operating system according to the publication.

Market for Anti-Virus Software Keeps Growing

NEW YORK - The cyber security landscape is facing new pressure from a few key areas. According to a recent report by Symantec(SYMC_), targeted attacks on enterprises are becoming more common. The report also highlights the growing use of social networks as a means of attack distribution and an expected increase of attacks on mobile platforms.

While these particular threats remain only a subset of cyber security concerns, their potential to increase dramatically is worth highlighting. Since social networks and mobile devices are two prominent areas of high user growth, their related security threats could see corresponding expansion. The expansion of the addressable market for anti-virus software should bolster Symantec stock.

Symantec is the leader in the security software market and competes with McAfee(MFE_) (acquired by Intel(INTC_)), Computer Associates, AVG, TrendMicro and Kaspersky Labs.