Virus Bulletin
Copyright © 2018 Virus Bulletin
Virus Bulletin has been testing anti‑virus (or anti-malware) products for more than two decades. A lot has changed during that time: threats have evolved greatly, as have the products. Yet, one thing has remained constant: people expect the security products they use to keep up with the latest malware.
The VB100 certification tests check whether products live up to that expectation, providing those that do with the VB100 stamp of approval.
This report details the performance of 28 of such products, from 27 different vendors, tested during September and October 2018, each of which achieved a VB100 award.
In the VB100 test, a copy of the product to be tested is installed on two platforms: Windows 10 and Windows 7. On each platform, and at three different times in the test, the product is asked to scan both the latest version of the WildList1 and a selection of clean files taken from Virus Bulletin's own set of files belonging to widely used legitimate software.
A legitimate file that is blocked at least once is considered a false positive, while a WildList file that isn't blocked is considered a miss.
A product achieves a VB100 certification if:
and
For full details, we refer to the VB100 methodology on the Virus Bulletin website: https://www.virusbulletin.com/testing/vb100/vb100-methodology/vb100-methodology-ver1-1/. This test used version 1.1 of the VB100 methodology.
The malware part of the VB100 certification test uses the WildList, a regularly updated list of extremely well-vetted malware samples, guaranteed to have been spotted in the wild multiple times. This makes them very suitable for a certification test like VB100.
The 'Diversity Test' looks at products' detection of another set of recent malware samples, to acknowledge the fact that products detect malware samples beyond a standard set of samples, and provides a measure of that detection.
Products were allowed to download updates during the course of the test. The version numbers listed in the results that follows refer to those at the start of the test.
| Windows 7 version | 9.0.49.2 |  |
| Windows 10 version | 9.0.49.2 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | N/A |
| Windows 7 version | 2018.09.04 | |
| Windows 10 version | 2018.09.05 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.52% |
| Windows 7 version | 18.6.2349 | |
| Windows 10 version | 18.6.2349 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.64% |
| Windows 7 version | 18.6.3066 | |
| Windows 10 version | 18.6.3066 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.64% |
| Windows 7 version | 5.1.38 | |
| Windows 10 version | 5.1.38 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.003% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.17% |
| Windows 7 version | 15.1.0111 | |
| Windows 10 version | 15.1.0111 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.001% | |
| Diversity test rate | 98.33% |
| Windows 7 version | 2018.8.0.9810 | |
| Windows 10 version | 2018.8.0.9810 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.64% |
| Windows 7 version | 14.0.1400.2029 | |
| Windows 10 version | 14.0.1400.2029 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.88% |
| Windows 7 version | 11.2.49.0 | |
| Windows 10 version | 11.2.49.0 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 100.00% |
| Windows 7 version | 3.0.1.3 | |
| Windows 10 version | 3.0.1.3 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.52% |
| Windows 7 version | 4.12.3102.401 | |
| Windows 10 version | 4.12.3102.401 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.005% | |
| Diversity test rate | 100.00% |
| Windows 7 version | 26.21.8 | |
| Windows 10 version | 26.21.8 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.52% |
| Windows 7 version | 5.6.2.1117 | |
| Windows 10 version | 5.6.2.1117 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.88% |
| Windows 7 version | 25.4.0.4 | |
| Windows 10 version | 25.4.0.4 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.001% | |
| Diversity test rate | 100.00% |
| Windows 7 version | 2.19.9 | |
| Windows 10 version | 2.16.20 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 97.98% |
| Windows 7 version | 15.1.0342 | |
| Windows 10 version | 15.1.0342 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 98.45% |
| Windows 7 version | 11.0.0.6499 | |
| Windows 10 version | 11.0.0.6499 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.76% |
| Windows 7 version | 1.0.126.89281 | |
| Windows 10 version | 1.0.126.89281 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.001% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.76% |
| Windows 7 version | 3.0.0.82 | |
| Windows 10 version | 3.0.0.82 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 77.86% |
| Windows 7 version | 2.0.1430 | |
| Windows 10 version | 2.0.1430 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 100.00% |
| Windows 7 version | 5.0.0.57 | |
| Windows 10 version | 5.0.0.57 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.006% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.76% |
| Windows 7 version | 1.0.105328 | |
| Windows 10 version | 1.0.105328 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.52% |
| Windows 7 version | 12.3.26577.901 | |
| Windows 10 version | 12.3.26577.901 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 100.00% |
| Windows 7 version | 9.0.0.747 | |
| Windows 10 version | 9.0.0.747 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 99.52% |
| Windows 7 version | 4.6.19 | |
| Windows 10 version | 4.9.36 | |
| WildList detection | 99.9% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | N/A |
| Windows 7 version | 10.1.4.33 | |
| Windows 10 version | 10.3.4.2 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 100.00% |
| Windows 7 version | 8.7.55 | |
| Windows 10 version | 8.7.54 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.001% | |
| Diversity test rate | 40.83% |
| Windows 7 version | 6.6.1.36 | |
| Windows 10 version | 6.6.1.36 | |
| WildList detection | 100.0% | |
| False positive rate | 0.000% | |
| Diversity test rate | 100.00% |
All tested products were certified.
Technical and other issues can render the data we collect insufficient or otherwise unsuitable for accurate reporting. In such cases, the methodology allows us to discard the affected test part and record the event below. Two healthy test parts out of three are required for the certification to be issued.
The WildList contained 1,580 samples. The set of clean files used for the false positive test contained 100,000 files, of which 29,235 were portable executable (PE) files. The set used for the Diversity Test contained 840 samples.
1 The WildList is an extremely well-vetted set of malware recently observed in the wild by researchers: http://www.wildlist.org/.
