3 reasons our small business 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 SMB anti-malware product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of attack.

3 reasons our small business tests are trustworthy

1. Is the test realistic?
2. Does the tester explain how they tested?
3. 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.

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 anti-malware 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.

SMB 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?

Read this SE Labs assessment of world-leading endpoint security products and discover how they handle well-known threats and targeted attacks.

Everyone tells you that you need it, but which one?

Which small business anti-virus is the best? Our reports help you choose the most appropriate small business anti-malware product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of attack.

Choose the best small business 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?”

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 small business anti-virus” or, worse, “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.

Choose the best small business security product

By understanding the rules of security testing

Our reports help you choose the best small business security product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of attack.

This report contains security testing results. You can choose the best small business security product by comparing the performance of a variety of products that claim to protect you against online threats. This, in theory, will help people and businesses choose the best security product.

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 business. Or a personal life.

So we, as testers, have a massive responsibility to do the right thing, meaning the honest thing. That means trying to involve as many reputable security vendors as possible in our tests and treating 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.

Zero to Neo

Targeted attacks come in all levels of sophistication

Our reports help you choose the best SMB anti-malware product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of targeted attacks.

Choose the best SMB endpoint security solution

There seems to be no limit to the powers of cyber criminals. In 2021 the public became aware of the advanced capabilities of the NSO group, now infamous for helping governments spy on dissidents and others.

Targeted targets

The SolarWinds attack compromised some of the largest organisations in the world (and my implication, their customers – and so on, down the supply chain). And the US’ largest oil pipeline company was breached, and its systems held to ransom.

Most analyses of these incidents recognise that endpoint security was attacked. As we alluded to in our annual report this year, breaches are a process. The initial stages of these famous attacks may not have involved a Windows PC but if your organisation grinds to a halt because everyone’s laptop is showing a red warning and a Bitcoin demand then the endpoint was compromised at some point. It needs protection, regardless of other security layers in play.

We include targeted attacks in our endpoint protection tests because hackers can use a variety of techniques to attack endpoints. Not all targeted attacks are as sophisticated and focussed as the automatic iPhone exploits used by the NSO Group. Sometimes a targeted attack can be as simple as someone using a basic tool downloaded from the internet. Your adversary might be your neighbour, rather than a government-backed organisation. In fact, that’s possibly more likely.

Protection is expected

It doesn’t really matter who represents a threat to you: a resourceful cyber ninja or an idiot colleague. When you or your business buys an endpoint protection product you expect it to stop attacks, sophisticated or otherwise. When you read the results in this report, remember that all it takes is one successful attack to ruin your day or your company.

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.

SE Labs Security Awards

Find out which products won in our annual awards

In this report, we reveal the SE Labs Security Awards for 2020-2021 and provide the latest security testing updates.

The third annual report from SE Labs charts the successes and failures of security companies, their customers and the criminals who keep relentless pressure on us all. Working from home is at its highest level in human history, which emphasises the need to secure all devices, everywhere.

Our annual awards recognise great performance in tests and in the real world.

Focus on endpoint protection results – 6 years of testing

After six solid years of testing endpoint protection we’ve produced a review that examines some of the trends and data points we’ve identified. How did your favourite anti-virus behave over the last few years?

What can we test, and how do we do it?

Meet the team behind SE Labs and find out which security solutions we test, and how we do it more realistically than anyone else.

SMB Ransomware Protection Tested

Red screens means red faces. Prevent, don’t pay!

Our reports help you choose the best enterprise anti-malware product that can protect you from ransomware and other types of attack

Choose the best home anti-malware solution

Ransomware is causing all the rage right now. It’s the type of threat that gets attention because a successful attack is extremely visible (the attacker needs you to know it’s worked, or you won’t pay!) Also, there is a direct and substantial cost attached to it. In addition to paying security specialists to help, there’s a fat ransom demand sitting on your screen.

While much hacking is subtle, stealing information silently, ransomware is in your face. It stops businesses in their tracks. It gets the attention of the finance directors. It provides powerful ammunition to security teams arguing for more resources. And, of course, it makes headlines.

Ransomware attacks used to be splashed around automatically. Anyone could be unlucky enough to click on the wrong link and face a red screen asking for a Bitcoin. And these ‘commodity’, untargeted ransomware attacks still exist. Some of the threats used in the making of this report are just such attacks.

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.

Small business endpoint protection

How to get out more than you put in

Our reports help you choose the best enterprise endpoint protection for your organisation. Picking a suitable solution isn’t just a matter of scanning through testing awards. You need to look closely at what you need, what you already have and what is available.

Choose the best anti-malware solution

If you were going to buy a new security fence, burglar alarm or CCTV system you would research the various options and consider how to deploy it in your very specific situation. The same should follow for endpoint protection systems. What do you really need? Are the candidates basically capable? And can you get the best out of them in your environment. We hope this report helps you answer some of these important questions.

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 enterprise endpoint protection report has gone through the AMTSO certification process. This ensures 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 anti-malware solution 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.

The world of cyber security sales is unclear at best

Our reports help you choose the best anti-malware solution for your organisation and your family. This latest one looks at how the most popular products handle the threats everyone faces on a daily basis, as well as the sort of targeted attack you hope never to encounter (but might).

There aren’t many resources available to help make such buying decisions. Security marketing is fraught with misleading claims. That’s not just our opinion. “Snake oil” is a common refrain among attendees of security conferences and the large companies that buy security to the tune of over one trillion dollars a year.

Choose the best anti-malware solution

SE Labs is particularly well connected in the security world. It’s partially how we have gained the trust of the security vendors themselves, and their own customers. We sit right in the middle of things, alongside the analysts who help businesses choose which vendors to work with. We provide insight into which products are right for different companies, which all have different needs.

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.

2020: year of the breach

Solid endpoint protection is a bare minimum

If it feels like new breaches are reported every week it’s because they are. Attackers are taking no prisoners and are successfully breaking into businesses, political organisations and systems belonging to individuals.

Backups are important but, they are not always the perfect solution. Recent attackers have been deleting backups and there are ways to damage offline backups held securely on tape, as we discussed in our article.

You can’t rely on just one type of security solution. However, having solid endpoint protection in place is one of a few bare-minimum measures you need to take. Most of the products in this security test report are excellent at providing a much-needed level of protection on personal and business computers.