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Beware fake anti-virus reviews

You need anti-virus and there is a load of advice online about which to buy. Who can you trust?

best anti-virus

Some anti-virus reviewers know what they are talking about. Others don’t. Some are just in it for the money. How can you tell which reviews are worth your time?

How to choose anti-virus for your PC and your family

Most people believe that you should run anti-virus on your PC. Independent security experts, governments and every computer journalist on the planet promotes this advice. And they are not wrong. There is no doubt that installing anti-virus is one of the most important things you can do to keep your computer and its data safe.

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Mac anti-virus

All you need to know about anti-virus on the Mac.

Mac anti-virus

At SE Labs we are often asked, “which is the best anti-virus for the Mac?” And, “do you need anti-malware for MacBooks?” For reasons we’ll explain, we’ve not published an endpoint security report for Mac-based products (yet).

But we do have an insight into how Mac threats work and how Apple tries to protect users. In this article we cover everything you need to know.

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Security planning for normal people

The first security technique you should master!

Security planning for normal people

Security planning can make your life easier to manage. It’s easy to become paralysed when you consider all of the threats that exist and all of the possible solutions. You can’t buy every security product available and you certainly shouldn’t even try.

There are risks that we all face (let’s call those ‘general risks’) and risks that are quite specific to you (‘individual risks’).

Security planning for anyone, whether you are the CEO of a large enterprise or a retired amateur gardener, should take into account what risks you (specifically) face and the consequences of something bad actually happening.

General risks

In this article we’re going to focus on cybersecurity, but the principles apply to any area of your life. In the computing world there are three major threats that we all face:

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Choose the best security product

By understanding the rules of security testing

choose the best security product

The reports below contain security testing results. You can compare the performance of a variety of products that claim to protect you against online threats. This, in theory, will help individuals and businesses choose the best security product.

Rules of engagement

But these are free reports. How can you trust that the high-scoring vendors didn’t just pay for their ranking? Do you suspect that some low-scoring vendors dropped out of the report? Or asked to be retested until they scored better?

What are the rules behind the scenes in security testing?

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Can general security tests be useful?

Real-world security reports don’t always reflect your real world.

Real-world security reports

What makes a real-world security test useful? Does it need to provide a full assessment of a product or service? An assessment that is directly relevant for all potential customers? Or does it need to give just a taste of how effective a product can be?

The perfect security test

Tests can vary in how they are run and the level of information that they provide. Not all tests are equally reliable or even useful. But one thing they all have in common is that they aren’t perfect. Let’s look at how tests are limited, how you can interpret them and what the future holds.

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3 ways to follow SE Labs

And Facebook isn’t one

3 ways to follow SE Labs

Updated 18th November, 2022: We no longer officially support Twitter

There are lots of ways that you can contact us, watch what we’re doing and keep up to date. But we’re stepping back from one so we can focus better on the others. Find out about the best 3 ways to follow SE Labs.

The 3 best ways to follow SE Labs

While we plan to continue maintaining a basic presence on Facebook, the best way to get the latest news, views and chat with us is to use one or more of the following three services.

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What does a breach look like?

Understand what a real hacking attack looks like to the attacker and defenders

breach visualisation

The IT security world is rocked by news of breach after breach, including the shocking disclosure of the SolarWinds attack. Data is stolen, deleted or corrupted and… well you know. It’s a total mess. Journalists focus on basic outcomes, while technical blogs look at esoteric technical details. We’ve explained, in laymen’s terms, what a breach looks like from an attacker’s point of view. And from the position of the defenders.

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Securing a business from scratch

 

Building and launching a start-up company is a challenge in itself. Securing it when it is new, young and vulnerable is something else. It’s very necessary but also hard if you don’t know what you’re doing. And can you afford a consultant in the early days?

If your new business is IT-based and focused on security then you’re in a stronger position than, say, an organic make-up business or an ethical coffee brand.

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Who certifies the certifiers?

At SE Labs we test security software and services methodically, realistically and in great detail. Or, at least, we claim to. But how does anyone really know? Do we follow quality management requirements? And what does that even mean?

Testing can be a very process-driven task. If you are going to be fair to every product undergoing a test you need to be consistent with how you run the test as a whole and how you test each individual product. It’s probably best carried out by well-qualified people, then?

You don’t need to be certified to work here…

We figured that as we certify, so should we be certified. As such, for the last few months we have worked towards having our business certified to an international level for providing consistent security testing services.

Another purpose of quality management is improvement. There is always room for improvement in testing, and we constantly strive to make things more realistic, useful and fair for everyone involved.

Quality management certified

As such I am extremely proud to announce that SE Labs has now achieved compliance with the ISO 9001:2015 standard for quality management systems, specifically relating to “The Provision of IT Security Product Testing”.

That means we do what we say we do, and strive to improve.

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Can Microsoft Solve Security?

Windows is becoming increasingly secure. Does this spell the end of third-party security products and services? Can Microsoft solve security on its own?

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