Bitdefender is top malware catcher in AV-Comparatives test

19 Jul 2013

Antivirus software manufacturer Bitdefender recently received a major feather in its cap. During the April 2013 Real World Protection Test, an independent international evaluation of antivirus providers conducted by global antivirus testing organisation AV-Comparatives, Bitdefender's software was the only antivirus program out of all 21 tested antivirus software brands to catch 100% of the malware that it encountered during the test.

This is no mean feat, says Lutz Blaeser, managing director of Intact Security, a South African distributor of various security software solutions, including Bitdefender. "Malware is rapidly on the increase. In 2012, it has been reported that approximately 27 million innovative strains saw the light - which is around 74, 000 per day! So it is actually no wonder that antivirus software programs from a number of manufacturers have failed to detect a large portion of malware samples."

Data collected by security firm Palo Alto Networks, gleaned from a study of more than 1, 000 corporate networks, reveals that common software packages failed to detect almost 40% of the malware that was seen by the average corporate network.

Blaeser notes that it is not just about the amount and the frequency of new strains that are popping up. "Apart from having to contend with the ever increasing number of new strains and attacks, the fact that the malware is also increasing in its level of sophistication and complexity makes the challenge even bigger for all security software developers."

AV-Comparatives also had high praise for Bitdefender's excellent performance. "The results of our testing on Bitdfender were truly impressive - a score of 100% is the best you can reach," says Andreas Clementi, the CEO of AV-Comparatives. "Bitdefender has proven to be reliable and outstanding in all of our tests."

Bitdefender's chief security strategist, Catalin Cosoi says that although the company has been number one for quite a while now, this year's awards so far have been really special. "We're not just beating all of the competition hands down - we're beating even our own past performance. That is exactly what we set out to achieve with Bitdefender 2013."