Viruses/Worms News

If at first you don't succeed: Most malware protection fails first round of certification testing

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

A study performed by security testing and research firm ICSA Labs says that almost four out of five computer security products fail their first certification tests and need to be retooled for a second and sometimes a third attempt.

The most common reason for a product to fail initial testing was a problem with core functionality, meaning that the software simply did not perform the tasks that it was designed to perform. ICSA gives the examples of an anti-virus program failing to detect viruses and an intrusion protection system not monitoring malicious network traffic.

Logging failures were the second most common hurdle that first-timers had trouble with. ICSA says that many vendors seem to consider logging simply a "box to check," rather than a core facet of a security product's functionality. Fully 97 percent of network firewalls experienced some logging failures during initial testing.

Computer security professionals say that they're falling behind in the race to keep computers safe from malicious code. The increasing organization and sophistication of cyber criminals makes for a difficult security climate.