Executive Summary:
VTC University of Hamburg
PC Scanner Test 97-02

Virus Test Center (VTC) at Hamburg University`s Faculty for Informatics recently tested on-demand scanners for their ability to identify PC viruses. Tests were performed on VTCs virus databases, which were frozen on their November 30, 1996 status to give AV producers a fair chance to support updates within 8 weeks. The test goal was to determine detections rates, reliability (=consistency) of virus identification and reliability of detection of submitted or publicly available scanners. Moreover, development of detection quality was measured where more than one update was available during the test period (including updates up to February 9, 1997).

Essential information about the virus databases:
    10,704 File Viruses in 58,000 infected files,
    827 System Viruses in 2,577 infected images, and
    143 Macro Viruses in 472 infected documents.
With threats from non-viral malware growing, the test also included 18 non-viral malicious programs (droppers, virus generators, trojan horses etc).

The final test contained versions of the following scanners:

    Alert (Look), AVAST! (Alwil), AVG (Grisoft),
    AVP (KAMI Ltd), AVScan (H+B EDV),
    DSAV (Dr. Solomon), DrWeb (Dialogue Science),
    F-Prot, F-MacroW (Frisk Software), F/Win (Kurtzhals),
    IBM AV (IBM), Integrity Master (Stiller Research),
    InVircible (NetZ), Norman Virus Control (Norman DD),
    Norton AV (Symantec), PCVP (CSE), Scan (McAfee),
    Sweep (Sophos), TBAV (ThunderByte), TNT (Carmel),
    VDS (Aadvanced Research Group), Virex (Datawatch),
    Virus Buster (Leprechaun), Virus Hunter (Dialogue Sc.),
    Virus Track (On Technology), Xscan (Anyware).
Sereval more scanners were tested but completely failed to meet VTCs test criteria (see test report). Moreover, our attempts to contact several reputed AV producers was answered with electronic silence.