Executive Summary:
Results of VTC Test for Computer Bild
VTC test "CB 1998-06"
Date: July 8, 1998

Virus Test Center of Hamburg University performed a special test on the quality of 14 selected AntiVirus products to detect file and macro viruses as well as file and macro malware (trojans, droppers, virus development kits etc) under Windows 95. This test was done for "Computer BILD", a leading German bi-weekly magazine (distribution: 1 million copies). Computer Bild selected products available on the German market (although mostly international versions) and handed these to VTC. The following products of AV companies (manufacturer or distributor) were tested: 


AV Product  Company (manufacturer/distributor)       Code

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GData Data      AntiVirenKit 8.02                    AVK

Flexform        Doctor-PC                            DPC

SOL 7.81,7.84   Dr Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit       SOL, SOL-U

Trend Micro     Desktop Virus Wall 3.71              DTW-U

FSEC 4.01       Percomp/F-Secure                     FSEC

INOCulan        Cheyenne Inoculan                    INO

NAV 4.0         Symantec Norton Antivirus            NOR, NOR-U

Panda           Omega/Panda Antivirus                PAN

PAV 3.0         Gdata/Power Antivirus                PAV

SCAN            McAfee VirusScan                     SCAN

TBAV 8.05       Promus/Thunderbyte AntiVirus         TBA

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One more product (Doctor Turbo) crashed consistently and is not included in the test report. In other cases, products crashed on some or several parts of the virus/malware databases. Where ever possible, recovery and continuation of the test was attempted which was successful in few cases.

In addition, Computer Bild experts analysed other parameters, such as additional features, human-computer interface, speed of scanning, etc. The test was published on July 6,1998 (vol.14/98, p.56-62) and is available from Computer Bild`s website:

http://www.computerbild.de

Besides details (see paragraphs 1-8), essential results were:

Testbeds were frozen on their status as known on April 30,1998: 


      File Viruses:  17,720 with 23,272 infected files (COM/EXE)

      Macro Viruses:  2,159 with  9,034 infected objects (DOC/XLS)

      File Malware:     213

      Macro Malware:    191
The test did deliberately NOT include boot viruses which are less relevant for Windows 95 users.

Malware include non-viral malicous software such as droppers, trojans, virus generators etc. This category is included in the test as users need protection not only against malicious self-replicating software (aka "viruses") but also against non-self-replicating forms of malware.

Products are rated according to the following categories: 


     A "perfect" product will detect 100% of viruses and malware,

     both for macro and file viruses.



     An "excellent" product will detect >99% of viruses and >95%

     of malware.



     A "very good" product will detect >95% of viruses and >85%

     of malware.
Concerning general ability of AntiMalware products, to detect both viral and non-viral malware, NO product can be rated as "perfect". Few products named "AntiVirus products" can indeed be labelled "AntiMalware (AM) products", as they can be rated "Excellent" and "Very Good" in general terms: 

                               (file/macro virus; file/macro malware) 

      Overall excellent:

              SOL-U               (99.7%  99.1%      98.8%   96.4%)



      Overall very good:

              AVK                 (99.5%  99.6%      87.7%   95.5%)

              PAV                 (99.0%  99.5%      87.1%   95.5%)
Concerning File Virus detection qualities, 3 products produce "excellent" results, and one more "very good" results: 

      Excellent (>99%):           SOL-U   99.7%

                                  AVK     99.5%

                                  PAV     99.0%

      Very Good (>95%):           NOR     90.0%
Concerning Macro Virus detection qualities, one product - FSecure - was almost perfect (it missed only 2 viruses in the macro "zoo"). Moreover, 3 products are rated "excellent", and 3 more get "very good". 

      Almost perfect (100.0%):    FSEC    100.0%

      Excellent (>99.0%):         AVK     99.6%

                                  PAV     99.5%

                                  SOL-U   99.1%   

      Very good (>95%):           SCAN    97.2%

                                  NOR-U   97.0%

                                  DTW-U   96.5%
Generally, although no AV product can be rated "excellent" for both file and macro virus detection, 3 can be rated as "generally excellent" and one more as "generally very good": 

                                   (file/macro viruses)

      Excellent (>99.0%):         AVK        (99,5% 99.6%)

                                  SOL        (99.7% 99.1%)

                                  PAV        (99.0% 99.5%)

      Very Good (>95.0%):         NOR        (97.0% 97.0%)
For more details, see the full report.

Hamburg July 8, 1998
Prof. Dr. Klaus Brunnstein