Kaspersky Internet Security on top in ‘Real-World’ Protection test

23rd December 2013

Kaspersky Lab’s flagship security solution for home users, Kaspersky Internet Security 2014, was recognized as the best of the products compared in the Whole Product Dynamic “Real-World” Protection Test conducted by AV-Comparatives, an independent research lab, from August to November 2013. The lab’s experts analyzed how effectively popular security products protect against real-world threats faced by home users.

The testing procedure allowed security solutions to use any techniques to prevent the test computer’s infection with malware – from blocking malicious links clicked by the user to detecting and removing malware already present on the device. However, security solutions had to operate with minimal input from PC users. This is because users are sometimes not sure what to do with suspicious programs detected by security solutions and might make poor decisions.

AV-Comparatives experts tested a total of 22 security solutions from different vendors. Each product was subjected to 1,821 test cases. Kaspersky Internet Security successfully blocked 1,820 threats, demonstrating 99.9% effectiveness over the four-month testing series – the best result among all products tested. The Kaspersky Lab product prevented the systems from being infected in all cases, only prompting the user to make a decision in one instance.

Several hundred legitimate sites and apps were also used during testing to check whether the products generated false positives. If the security solutions blocked one of these sites or files from opening, they received a penalty. Kaspersky Internet Security was one of just five products that did not generate a single false positive.

The outstanding results produced by Kaspersky Internet Security earned the product an Advanced+ rating from AV-Comparatives.

“For ordinary users it’s not that important at exactly which stage a security solution manages to block malware – the main thing is that it prevents their computers from being infected. Because the testing by AV-Comparatives assesses a product’s combined capabilities, the results present home users with a much more practical evaluation than other tests that only assess individual security components,” commented Oleg Ishanov, Director Anti-Malware Research, Kaspersky Lab.

Testing was carried out on a 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 with all the updates that were available as of August 2013. The latest versions of popular applications such as Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Apple QuickTime, Mozilla Firefox, and Oracle Java were also installed on the test computers.

Testing was conducted by AV-Comparatives in conjunction with specialists from the University of Innsbruck. More information about the Whole Product Dynamic “Real-World” Protection Test is available on the test lab’s site http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php