OREANDA-NEWS. August 10, 2012. Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012, the essential protection solution from Kaspersky Lab, has earned the highest award in the latest tests conducted by AV-Comparatives testing lab. The Retrospective/Proactive test, started by the independent research institution in March 2012 and concluded in July, puts security solutions into a very complicated environment. With no database updates and without access to the cloud, success in this test depends heavily on proactive protection techniques. Rising to the challenges of this demanding scenario, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 finished in first place after detecting 97% of malicious programs and thereby exceeding the requirements for the top Advanced+ award.

To conduct this test, database updates for all 17 security solutions were frozen and the test machines were disconnected from the Internet. In the following days each product was ordered to scan a test set of 4,138 malicious samples, all of which had been discovered after the freeze date. Since the products could not obtain information about the newest samples from updated databases or from cloud-based security networks, they were all forced to rely on proactive or heuristic technologies.

This year’s Retrospective test by AV-Comparatives also has a notable improvement in its methodology. The products were given a “second chance” to detect malicious programs that were missed during the initial on-demand scan. Each sample was executed manually, so that the security solution had a chance to block it based on its malicious behavior.

When the results were confirmed, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 successfully blocked 90% of malicious apps during regular on-demand scanning - one of the highest results in the test. The following additional testing saw another 7% of malware blocked, bringing the final score up to 97%, with a few false alarms. This result is also significantly higher than the industry average of 87% among the 11 solutions that were eligible for an Advanced+ award.

“Despite the fact that most of threats nowadays come from the web, rather than local sources like USB thumb drives, this kind of scenario where malicious programs attack an offline system is still valid. We welcome the changes in methodology introduced by AV-Comparatives, as this test is a cognitive scientific experiment, deliberately placing security solutions in a very tough environment. But even under these most challenging circumstances, Kaspersky Anti-Virus delivers the best result: it blocks the majority of new threats using mostly proactive protection methods,” commented Oleg Ishanov, Director of Anti-Malware Research, Kaspersky Lab.