Vnunet.com has an interesting article about the latest test results of Virus Bulletin. Major vendors such as Sophos, Trend Micro and Kapersky failed to protect against some of the viruses in their collection. I found it quite interesting that Microsoft, a newcomer in this field, passed their test.

I blogged about the bad detection rate of Microsoft’s antivirus solutions (Onecare and Forefront) in March this year. Microsoft OneCare was the only AV solution that failed AV Comparatives’ test. In June Microsoft OneCare already improved a little and went up to rank #14 out of 17.

I think this development is remarkable. It shows that Microsoft is serious about fighting against this plague that only affects Windows users. It is certainly quite embarrassing for the major AV players not to detect some outdated viruses. However, one should always be cautious from reading too much into such tests. It is much more important how fast an AV team reacts to new threats. I doubt that Microsoft is already able to compete with the specialists here.

I am still considering giving Microsoft’s AV solution a chance even though my first impression of Forefront was not really positive. As an educational institution, we get Microsoft software for a reasonable price. Thus their software is always an option for us.