Sector: Consumer
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Four security tips to reach the top 1%
It’s a shocking statistic, but most businesses don’t have a cyber security plan. And if businesses aren’t paying attention, it’s certain that most home users also have their heads in the sand. The good news is you can get ahead of the crowd in three easy steps. Maybe four if you want to be really sure.
Consumers are everyone. We are all, with very few unfortunate exceptions, ‘home users’. Home users need security because the computer devices in our lives are more important today than they’ve ever been.
Access to the internet is crucial in modern life and anything that prevents us from accessing essential services is a serious problem for those individuals. It’s increasingly difficult to access bank accounts, healthcare and even the benefits system without internet access.
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So here are four security tips to reach the top 1%
So how can we individuals, without access to cyber security teams and expensive security products, beat the hackers? You’ve probably seen these tips before, but trust us – use them all and you’ll be far ahead of most other internet users in terms of security:
- Back up your important data.
- Use multi-factor authentication.
- Use anti-virus protection.
- Apply security updates when available.
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.
Essential Endpoint Security Home
Realistic attacks for useful results
Essential Endpoint Security at Home
Keeping safe from online threats requires strong endpoint protection. It’s not just important – it’s crucial. So, it’s a good idea to regularly check how well it’s working. Essential endpoint security means checking if the security tools on devices like desktops, laptops, and mobiles actually do their job. Why? Because these devices are often the target of online attacks. If they’re not protected, they can become a way for cybercriminals to get to your sensitive information.
Our reports help you choose the best home anti-malware product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of attacks.
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How we test endpoint protection for small businesses
SE Labs brings a wealth of experience to the table when it comes to testing endpoint protection. We firmly believe in the necessity of conducting these tests regularly to ensure that security vendors are consistently updating and enhancing their effectiveness. Our testing approach involves recreating real-world cyberattack situations, allowing us to assess the performance of endpoint security solutions in terms of detection, prevention, and mitigation.
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.
Read this SE Labs assessment of world-leading endpoint security products and discover how they handle well-known threats and targeted attacks.
Critical Endpoint Protection
Home Anti-Virus Tests Are Really Important
Critical Endpoint protection is a critical component for good home cyber security
And if it’s critical then you should test it. And have others run assessments too. Testing endpoint protection involves evaluating the effectiveness of the security solutions deployed. Such as endpoint devices like desktops, laptops and mobile devices. Endpoint protection testing is necessary because endpoints are often the target of cyberattacks. They can be used as a gateway to gain access to sensitive data.
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How we test endpoint protection for home anti-virus tests
We have extensive experience in endpoint protection testing, and we have found that it is essential to conduct these tests regularly to ensure that the security vendors are keeping them up-to-date and effective. Our testing methodology involves replicating real-world cyberattack scenarios and evaluating how well the endpoint security solutions perform in detecting, preventing, and mitigating those attacks.
One of the key aspects of endpoint protection testing is the use of realistic attack scenarios. Our team of experts analyses the latest threat intelligence and creates attack scenarios that closely mimic the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by real-world cybercriminals. By doing so, we can determine how well the endpoint security solutions perform in detecting and preventing these attacks.
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.
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.
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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.
Top Antivirus Myths Busted
And why do we still believe them?
Anti-virus, or endpoint security plays an essential part in protecting Windows PCs. Whether you are working in the world’s largest enterprise, or using a small personal laptop, you need a last line of defence against attacks who use malicious code to steal or damage your data.
Our reports help you choose the best home anti-malware product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of attack.
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Product factsheets:
Antivirus myths you shouldn’t believe
- Anti-virus slows your computer.
- Anti-virus only stops viruses.
- You must pay for great protection.
- Detection means protection.
- Updates are no longer necessary.
Read the full report to see why these myths exist and why they are not true.
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.
Read this SE Labs assessment of world-leading endpoint security products and discover how they handle well-known threats and targeted attacks.
Cyber Threat Intelligence
Annual Report 2023: Threat Intelligence for 2023
Welcome to the fourth annual report from SE Labs. This edition focuses on cyber threat intelligence.
Understanding threats is crucial when trying to defend against them. Knowing your enemy’s tactics helps clarify security planning.
We use threat intelligence when testing security products, to ensure our results are useful to companies facing real threats in the real world.
We’re sharing our insights here to help you build a strategy for success in the face of the global cyber threat.
What are the Threats?
We explore the current threats and explain why so many organisations remain vulnerable. There’s good news and bad news…
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Ransomware
Learn about the very latest innovations in testing anti-ransomware security approaches.
Annual Security Awards
Our Annual Security Awards recognises security vendors that not only do well in our tests, but perform well in the real world with real customers. These awards are the only in the industry that recognise strong lab work combined with practical success.
How we work (and could work with you!)
Discover which types of tests we run and how we can work with you to improve your product or your choice of products.
Choose your reviews carefully
3 reasons our home tests are trustworthy
This security report compares anti-malware products. Its job is to help you make informed buying decisions.
Our reports help you choose the best home anti-malware product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of attack.
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Product factsheets:
3 reasons our home tests are truly trustworthy
There are a few questions you should ask when you look at a security report. These are all very important but in random order here they are:
- Is the test realistic?
- Does the tester explain how they tested?
- Does the tester explain how they make money
from the report?
There are all sorts of other little details to consider, which are often things security vendors get anxious about. These include technical details relating to the testing environment and the threats used to test the products. But ultimately, as a reader, you should care most about the list above.
Choose your reviews carefully
If you see a security report that isn’t realistic and transparent treat it with extra care. For more information about fake anti-virus reviews please see our blog post on the subject. If you want to make the most informed purchase of security software choose your 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.
Home Anti-Virus Testing
How hard should a security test be?
Thank you for opening this report. I hope you’ll be able to use it to get a better idea about which home anti-virus products you might want to buy (or get rid of!).
Our reports help you choose the best SMB anti-malware product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of attack.
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Home Anti-Virus Testing
The report starts off with a list of products, each of which win impressive-looking awards. But have you considered what those awards mean? How come there aren’t any massive losers in the list? How hard is this security test anyway?
Baseline Testing
There are lots of ways you can test products. You could prod a teddy bear and say, “well, that looks good enough,” or you could take it to pieces and analyse every component forensically for build and functional quality. “This toy looks safe, its parts are large, soft and non-toxic, and we can’t burn it easily. Plus, it’s got big, cute eyes.” This could be a baseline for cuddly toys: SAFE, with cuteness as an extra bonus.
For anti-malware products we have to consider a few different things, including the following:
- Is it really an anti-malware product? Is it at least basically functional?
- Can it determine a good quantity of common malware, without blocking lots of useful software?
- Can it stop the malware, as well as simply detecting it?
Which home anti-virus?
Everyone tells you that you need it, but which one?
Which home anti-virus is best? Our reports help you choose the home anti-malware product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of attack.
Choose the best home anti-malware solution
Classic cybersecurity advice always includes a plea to, “install anti-virus” or “use endpoint protection software”. Journalists, bloggers and even governments hand this information out, as if it helps. Most platforms, including Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS, include anti-virus so the question then becomes, “which anti-virus?”
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How do you choose?
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) provides some mature and detailed advice but stops short of helping readers work out which products might be most suitable. The only time it tries to help in this respect ends in a bizarre suggestion that you might prefer a product that implements the Anti-Malware Scan Interface (AMSI). This feature is only relevant if you are developing security software yourself.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the US gives advice on stopping ransomware. At the bottom of the list, including useful items such as, “update and patch” and “keep your personal information safe” is the instruction to, “install antivirus software, firewalls and email filters.” Nowhere does any such organisation help you choose which is the best or most appropriate for your organisation.
When you search for, “best home anti-virus” you’ll see millions of links to better or lesser-known magazine websites and slightly shady reseller’s blogs. Some of the most respectable technical websites run sensible and unbiased reviews and there’s where you start to get somewhere: opinions on interfaces and prices. But how effective are these products?
Find the best reviews
The best reviewers delegate the really technical business of testing endpoint security to the professional testers. If you read their reviews you’ll see our name in there somewhere.
This is because organisations such as SE Labs spend all of their time testing security products – it’s what we specialise in. In our case we learn how the criminals behave and then copy them closely. This produces the most realistic results you can hope to see in a public security test. We also ensure that our reports are reviewed by the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) to validate that we’ve tested fairly.
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.
Read this SE Labs assessment of world-leading endpoint security products and discover how they handle well-known threats and targeted attacks.
Choose the best home security product
By understanding the rules of security testing
Our reports help you choose the best home security product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of attack.
Choose the best home anti-malware solution
This report contains 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 people choose the best security product.
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Product factsheets:
But this is a free report. 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?
With security testing the stakes are high. From a customers’ perspective, the wrong decision could be disastrous to a personal life.
So we, as testers, have a massive responsibility to do the right thing. That means the honest thing. We need to involve as many reputable security vendors as possible in our tests. And treat them all fairly.
Security vendors want to sell products and will do what they can to achieved strong marketing. That can involve appearing in weak tests or engaging with more ‘flexible’ testers. One strategy could be to test enough privately against competitors and then release the one report that shows your product at the top of the list.
We focus on strong technical testing and avoid purely marketing-led initiatives. We have awards for vendors who do well, but we stand out by assessing technology deeply and helping improve things for everyone.
Five simple rules
In our blog post Public and Private Testing we explain our five simple rules to help maintain the integrity of our reports. If you want to peak behind the curtain, to see how we work with security vendors, the information is all available online.
Testing Standards
For this report we also followed the only available Standard for anti-malware testing, the one run by the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization. This ensures that we do what we say we’ll do, and can prove it.
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.
