All reports
How to test and judge anti-virus products?
Back to basics
How to test and judge anti-virus products?
Working out which endpoint protection product is right for you requires a lot of thought. Each product on the market has a pile of features and they don’t all do exactly the same thing. But at the very least, they should detect and stop malware threats. That should be your baseline when choosing between them. In our latest Endpoint Security (EPS) reports we test and judge endpoint protection products of many of the main brands, and we tell you how we do it.
Our reports help you choose the best home anti-malware product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of attacks.
Loading…
Reload document 
Open in new tab 
How we test anti-virus products
Testing security technology is rarely simple. We’ve talked about online anti-virus reviews before, and how they can be too basic to help make sensible buying decisions. But we don’t have to get bogged down in
details here. Let’s get back down to basics. What should anti-virus products do and how does SE Labs test them?
- Firstly, we install different anti-malware solutions onto real PCs – the sort you have on or under your desk. Then we attack those computers using threats we’ve found on the internet and using targeted attacks that we’ve built in our lab. Fundamentally, we behave like real attackers. It’s the purest kind of test.
- Secondly, we then score products on their performance. They get points for detecting the threat and further credit if they actually stop the attack. If they prevent the attack from running at all they score top marks for ‘blocking’ the threat.
- Lastly, we introduce good emails, websites and programs to the targets. If a security product blocks those, we deduct a lot of points because they are hampering users from using their computers properly.
Choose your reports and reviews carefully
We pride ourselves on a level of transparency that elevates our work above the less open reports available. But don’t just take our word for it. This report has gone through the AMTSO certification process to ensure that we say what we’re going to do; do it; and can prove it. Our results help vendors improve their products and buyers choose the best for their own needs.
