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#Microsoft and Others Fail Antivirus Test – #ForeFront, #FEP, #AV
Microsoft is still behind the competition…
How many of you out there are using ForeFront Endpoint Protection (FEP) to secure your clients/servers?
Below is a good article from Neil J. Rubenking about the latest (Nov/DEc 2012) report from AV-Test:
Based in Magdeburg, Germany, independent lab AV-Test evaluates and rates antivirus products on a variety of different criteria. Every couple of months the researchers summarize their testing and report on which products achieved certification. In the latest such report, several vendors failed to make the grade.
One of the many individual tests involved in AV-Test certification measures how well products stand up to zero-day attacks—viruses or other threats so new that no antivirus signature exists. AV-Test CEO Andreas Marx noted that the 25 consumer products in the current test averaged 92 percent detection of zero-day attacks. “This means,” said Marx “that one out of ten malware attacks succeeded.” He also pointed out that while the products averaged 91 percent cleanup of existing infections, many didn’t remove all traces. “Only 60% could be put back in a condition similar to the pre-infection state,” Marx observed.
Certification Failed
Products can earn six points each for repair of existing malware infestations, protection against new attacks, and overall usability. Here usability means the product doesn’t slow system performance and doesn’t falsely report valid programs or activities as malicious. In order to receive certification, a product must earn a total of 11 points.
Just as in the previous test, Microsoft didn’t make the cut, though with ten points it came close. PC Tools also failed with ten points.
The big loser this time around was AhnLab. In the previous test AhnLab squeaked by with 11 points. The latest test saw that score drop to 8.5 points, well below the certification cutof…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms – #Gartner, #EPP via @rspruijt
Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms
VIEW SUMMARY
The endpoint protection platform provides a collection of security utilities to protect PCs and tablets. Vendors in this market compete on the quality of their protection capabilities, the depth and breadth of features, and the ease of administration.
Market Definition/Description
The enterprise endpoint protection platform (EPP) market is a composite market primarily made up of collections of products. These include:
- Anti-malware
- Anti-spyware
- Personal firewalls
- Host-based intrusion prevention
- Port and device control
- Full-disk and file encryption, also known as mobile data protection
- Endpoint data loss prevention (DLP)
- Vulnerability assessment
- Application control (see Note 1)
- Mobile device management (MDM)
These products and features are typically centrally managed and ideally integrated by shared policies.
DLP, MDM and vulnerability assessment are also evaluated in their own Magic Quadrant or MarketScope analyses. Longer term, portions of these markets will get subsumed by the EPP market, as the personal firewall, host intrusion prevention, device control and anti-spyware markets have in the past. EPP suites are a logical place for convergence of these functions. Indeed, 53% of organizations in a recent Gartner survey1 already use a single vendor for several of these functions, or are actively consolidating products. In particular, mobile data protection is the leading complement to EPP and purchasing decisions regarding the two products are increasingly made together. For most organizations, selecting a mobile data protection system from their incumbent EPP vendors will meet their requirements.
In 2012, the large enterprise EPP market is still dominated by Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro, which together represent approximately 68% of the total revenue of Magic Quadrant participants. Sophos and Kaspersky Lab are the two other global leaders that are competitive across multiple functions and geographies, and push the combined Leaders quadrant market share to 85%. Despite the introduction of new players, the displacement of incumbents is still a significant challenge in the large enterprise market. The biggest impact of the Magic Quadrant Challengers and Visionaries is to push the dominant market players to invest in new features and functionality (sometimes via acquisitions) to stay ahead, and to keep pricing rational. In the less demanding small and midsize market, competition is more intense. A number of Niche Player solutions are dominant in specific regions.
The total EPP revenue of the Magic Quadrant participants at year-end 2011 was roughly $2.8 billion, up 4% from 2010. We attribute this growth primarily to increased buying of more-expensive suites, offset by lower prices for low-end malware-only solutions. Consequently, EPP revenue growth is more a result of an inflow of revenue from other markets. We anticipate that growth will continue to be in the low single digits in 2013.
Microsoft is the best vendor in a position to challenge the incumbent Leaders, primarily due to attractive pricing in its enterprise agreements. Approximately one-third of enterprise buyers1 indicate they are actively considering Microsoft or plan to do so during their next renewal periods. However, Microsoft’s slow development, the lack of a single unified security management interface and mediocre test results will temper its adoption. Longer term, we believe that increased displacement of Windows endpoints with application-controlled OSs (such as Microsoft WinRT and Apple’s iOS and OS X Mountain Lion) is the biggest market threat. These solutions shift the value proposition of EPP solutions from traditional anti-malware to MDM and data protection capabilities.
Magic Quadrant
Source: Gartner (January 2013)
Vendor Strengths and Cautions
Arkoon Network Security
Arkoon Network Security’s StormShield EPP solution (formerly offered by SkyRecon Systems) is designed as a seamless integrated EPP with a focus on behavioral protection. Arkoon’s Ability to Execute score is hampered by its relatively small market share and limited geographic presence, as well as its still-maturing management capabilities….
Continue reading here!
//Richard
The IT Melting Pot! 