Microsoft Security Essentials Failed AV-Test Certification

Every two months, the German independent information security institute AV-Test conducts tests of popular antivirus software. In her latest test , which she conducted on Windows 7 in September and October, Microsoft Security Essentials did not score enough points to get certified.



Although this in itself is not so impressive, Microsoft software was the only one that did not receive a certificate from AV-Test. For comparison, three other free anti-virus products - Avast, AVG and Panda Cloud - received it.

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There are three categories where antiviruses earn points: protection, recovery and usability. When points are added, the software must score at least 11 points out of 18 in order to receive a certificate. Security Essentials earned only 10.5 points, which leads to the question: what caused this deterioration?



The reason was that Security Essentials failed to recognize a sufficient amount of zero-day malware. His figure was 69% in September and 64% in October. While the average among all tested antiviruses was 89%! The remaining points were left without significant changes compared to previous tests. In fairness, we note that the majority of software under test results were lower than in May and June.



The winner in terms of points was Bitdefender Internet Security, which scored 17 out of 18 points. The complexes from F-Secure and Kaspersky took second and third places, respectively, with 15.5 and 15.0 points. Of the free software ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall was awarded the highest 14.5 points.



Note that in a similar test, Microsoft Forefront Endpoint corporate protection products scored only 9.5 points.