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Microsoft Security Essentials Misses 39% of Malware

Posted by timothy on from the talked-harshly-with-the-other-61-percent dept.

Barence writes "The latest tests from Dennis Publishing's security labs saw Microsoft Security Essentials fail to detect 39% of the real-world malware thrown at it. Dennis Technology Labs (DTL) tested nine home security products on a Windows 7 PC, including Security Essentials, which is distributed free to Windows users and built into Windows 8 in the form of Windows Defender. While the other eight packages all achieved protection scores of 87% or higher — with five scoring 98% or 99% — Microsoft's free antivirus software protected against only 61% of the malware samples used in the test. Microsoft conceded last year that its security software was intended to offer only "baseline" performance"."

97 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. In other news by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft Windows hosts 99.999% of malware.

    1. Re:In other news by Stormwatch · · Score: 4, Funny

      Obligatory blast(er worm) from the past...

      Is Windows a virus?

      No, Windows is not a virus. Here's what viruses do:

      1 - They replicate quickly - okay, Windows does that.
      2 - Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do so - okay, Windows does that.
      3 - Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk - okay, Windows does that too.
      4 - Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. Sigh... Windows does that, too.
      5 - Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too slow (see 2.) and the user will buy new hardware. Yup, that's with Windows, too.

      Until now it seems Windows is a virus, but there are fundamental differences: viruses are well supported by their authors, are running on most systems, their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature.

      So Windows is not a virus. It's a bug.

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
    2. Re:In other news by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The really good (as in clever) malware don't do any of those things. It's best not to in order to avoid unwanted attention so that your ultimate goal (whatever it be) can be achieved.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    3. Re:In other news by tlambert · · Score: 4, Funny

      Windows is malare.

      no it's not. stop being dramatic. it only makes you look like an idiot.

      How exactly is Windows making him look like an idiot?

    4. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Malware is probably the most precisely written, bug-free software on the planet, bar nothing else. It takes up little memory, runs without being noticed, can run on an extremely large amount of hardware/software combinations and run well.

      So, calling Windows malware is really a misnomer. Malware is written to some damn exacting quality standards, and its support (such as the people behind CryptoLocker) is usually better than 99% of the tech support departments in any legit company.

    5. Re:In other news by bloodhawk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You honestly have not dealt with much malware. Most of it is atrociously written and more often then not only detected because it chews up system resources or causes crashes. only a tiny percentage of malware is written well.

    6. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      only a tiny percentage of malware is written well.

      Only a tiny percent of Windows is writen well. As well.

    7. Re:In other news by smash · · Score: 1

      Malware is self replicating. Windows isn't. In fact it has safeguards built into it against replication.

      --
      I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
    8. Re:In other news by AAWood · · Score: 2

      So just to check; Windows is like malware because it's badly coded, but it's also unlike malware because it's badly coded.

      I love Slashdot.

    9. Re:In other news by Nivag064 · · Score: 1

      Sounds like Microsoft software!

    10. Re:In other news by ls671 · · Score: 1

      It just replicates in more subtle ways which you apparently missed.

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    11. Re:In other news by fisted · · Score: 1

      Given the huge codebase, windows is bound to be a bit of everything

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
  2. Actual Reports by mythosaz · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://dennistechnologylabs.com/reports/s/a-m/2013/DTL_2013_Q4_Home.1.pdf

    1. Re:Actual Reports by mythosaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      7.2 Threat selection
      The malicious web links (URLs) used in the tests
      were not provided by any anti-malware vendor.
      They were picked from lists generated by Dennis
      Technology Labs’ own malicious site detection
      system, which uses popular search engine
      keywords submitted to Google. It analyses sites
      that are returned in the search results from a
      number of search engines and adds them to a
      database of malicious websites.
      In all cases, a control system (Verification Target
      System - VTS) was used to confirm that the URLs
      linked to actively malicious sites.
      Malicious URLs and files are not shared with any
      vendors during the testing process.

      In other words, you get to take his word for it, and we don't know what failed or why.

    2. Re:Actual Reports by msauve · · Score: 2

      Not just that. I'd be more interested in a metric which considers the real-world prevalence of a threat. They're not equal, failure to block a common threat is much worse than failure to block a rarely encountered one.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    3. Re:Actual Reports by vux984 · · Score: 2

      Is it clear that the malicious urls actually hosted different payloads? Or did MSE and McAffee just get hammered by same virus strain 30 times?

      I realize that if a strain is common and being missed that it's a big deal, but it does distort the picture greatly if they just keep testing the same "gap" in security over and over again.

      There is also the question of what some of this stuff is and whether or not its even within MSE's purview. Kapersky Internet Security and NIS etc are full system protection -- they get into your email, they run your firewall, etc. In other words I don't expect MSE to block "threats" that are outside its functional scope. (And in exchange for that MSE has never completely effed up my ability to receive email... something NIS does on a regular basis.)

    4. Re:Actual Reports by TapeCutter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, vendor A says vendor B's free product sucks. I put MES on my win7 boxes after the free AGV let something thru earlier this year. The virus tricked win7 into thinking an infected system file was a good thing.Interestingly MSE was the only one of three free virus scanners I tried that picked up the infection.

      However there was catch22 since MSE stubbornly refused to install itself until the infected file was gone and win7 kept restoring the infected file at boot up. The pragmatic developer in me gave up digging further down that particular rabbit hole. I realise I was now also fighting a win7 immune system that the virus had usurped, but I knew how it got in and that was enough to convince me to change the scanner I'd been using since the late 90's. First time in at least 10yrs I've had to wipe my own windows system disk because of an infection.

      Why yes, IAACS, but the above is experience with MSE is a personal anecdote, not a professional opinion.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    5. Re:Actual Reports by cusco · · Score: 1

      My wife's family is in Peru, and her nieces and nephews send her emails and such from the Internet cafes. MES has caught everything but one ever since it was first introduced, and that one was only because she accidentally clicked 'OK'. Even then the MES bootable CD cleaned it.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    6. Re:Actual Reports by mlts · · Score: 2

      Almost all AV software is (to borrow a British term) bollocks. One time interval, one AV offering is at the top of the heap. Next time interval, same package is now getting stomped on by other tests, and some tests are not really objective.

      Every other OS out there except Windows runs quite fine without AV software. The only reason McAfee is running on the AIX or Solaris box is because it makes the legal eagles happy... and even then, the software only runs when a cron job fires off to fetch updates, then go scan down filesystems... and there are just not going to be any viruses in COFF format on a JFS2 filesystem, nor any on a ZFS pool, barring Windows malware on a samba share.

      Realistically, what I've found that protects against the bad crap, would be ad blocking Web extensions and software that blocks bad IP addresses. Yes, in theory, there may be a way for a bad guy to jump a firewall, connect to machines behind a NAT, and inject malware directly, but that is exceedingly rare. The biggest threat next to Trojans (the .pdf.exe or the "foo.pdf .exe" files) are security holes in the Web browser or add-ons. A zero day in a popular browser sells for a lot because it can bring even more revenue in. CryptoLocker has showed that to be the case.

      The best way of protection these days is defense in depth. Something like Qubes OS where not just the memory and registers are virtualized, but the complete filesystem. Then, this is combined with a rollback ability so when the Web browser is not used, any code other than signed add-ons is purged, and only data is stored. However, on the operating systems we have now, the next best thing is either running the most dangerous thing (the Web browser) in a virtual machine, or at the minimum a sandbox that redirects writes to a separate filesystem [1].

      This sounds like a lot of effort, but it really isn't, once things are set up, and assuming the host machine has enough RAM to keep the VM happy. (XP can do decently in 512MB of RAM, or one can run a modern Linux distro with a modern DE in 1024-2048 MB of RAM.)

      With most malware being zero day stuff, if it manages to get a user context, or an Administrator context, you tend to be screwed no matter how good the AV program is, except for Malwarebytes which blocks by IP addresses.

      AV has two uses in my book: It keeps the legal eagles happy, and is a checkbox come audit time. It also can useful for scanning offline volumes, to check if a backup image has been rootkitted.

      [1]: The reason for the separate filesystem is that I've encountered malware that will just write bunches of zero byte files, or create directories until Windows's analog of inodes are used up. With the sandbox on a separate FS, it doesn't take much to kill the sandbox, reformat the volume, re-Bitlocker [2] it, and continue on.

      [2]: With a BitLocker protected filesystem, if you run a Vista or newer format.exe on it, the format command will notice it is a BDE filesystem, and overwrite multiple times the spaces where the old master volume keys are stored, effectively ensuring the volume cannot be recovered.

    7. Re:Actual Reports by LordLimecat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      CryptoLocker has showed that to be the case.

      Having been on a team that dealt with cryptolocker, I can say that you are not correct.

      Cryptolocker often is sent as malicious executables contained in zip file email attachments, which could target Linux or OSX or AIX just as easily.

      you tend to be screwed no matter how good the AV program is,

      If the virus is in usermode, the AV can easily remove it no matter what measures it takes, since the AV runs with root privileges. If the virus has root, it depends on what virus and what AV and how recent each is.

      The whole premise of "Windows gets viruses because its insecure" is such an absurd myth thats been disproved so many times that its astonishing that people still make such a stupid claim. Go look up Pwn2Own, and see how vulnerable your *nix systems can be when theres a sufficient incentive to break in. Go look up the cross-platform PDF Proof of concept. Check the stats on what type of exploits are used for the majority of malware (OS / third party /browser plugin); I think you'll find that OS-level exploits are quite uncommon these days compared with the others.

      ...[2]....

      Viruses dont do that because there is no financial gain whatsoever to killing a Bitlocker volume.

    8. Re:Actual Reports by LMariachi · · Score: 1

      Furthermore:

      All target systems were fully exposed to the
      threats. This means that any exploit code was
      allowed to run, as were other malicious files

      Which suggests that every time a warning popped up, e.g. "This site would like to install MalwareToolbar, Allow/Deny?" they clicked Allow, and every time a site wanted them to download malware.exe, they did and then executed it.

    9. Re:Actual Reports by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Informative

      I have an even better question....how much of the stuff did he just ignore what MSE told him and kept on installing? How much was an actual failure, IE a drive by or zero warning from MSE, and how much was deliberate PEBKAC?

      As a PC builder and repairman I have more exp than most when it comes to bugs and AVs (disclosure, I give customers Comodo or Avira, depending on how big PEBKAC they are) and I use MSE on my gaming system and here is the thing...while MSE will TELL you, it won't yank the keyboard out of your hand and slap your wrists. You can say "I choose to ignore this" and click a single button and bypass the block. Now some AVs very much WILL yank the keyboard from you, in fact I recently stopped giving out Avast because it had gotten SO aggressive that even if you told it that it was a false positive and to let it run? it would just straight up ignore you.

      But here is the two things you must keep in mind if you choose to run MSE, 1.- It don't do shit as far as webpages, in fact I don't think I have ever seen MSE block single webpage no matter what was on it, so using a browser that runs in low rights mode is a must, and 2.- It was originally Giant AntiSpy and so that is what it works best on, its not really any good at blocking the social engineering based attacks we see a lot today, the "Hey its your BFF (insert name) on (insert chat client) and I found this great page, just click here!" where the person is then led to a page full of zero days type of attack.

      That said frankly you shouldn't be giving MSE to your clueless types anyway, that is what a sandboxing AV like Comodo or one that holds their hand like Avira is best at, what MSE is for is for your non clueless who aren't gonna be doing PEBKAC shit and just want a lightweight AV to scan executables and add another layer to their defenses. It was never designed to be the end all be all, you got half a dozen free AVs that do that particular job VERY well, but all of them do HELL of a lot more scanning and thus take up more cycles, and when I'm gaming or editing audio/video? I NEED those cycles, thanks anyway.

      My Win 7 system has been running ME since RTM in Oct 09 and its clean as a whistle, then again I run a low rights browser with ABP (a good 85% of bugs IME come from infected ads), don't run strange executables and don't click on email links either. If you are smart enough to show common sense on the web? MSE is fine. if not? Comodo, Avira, Avast, you have choices.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    10. Re:Actual Reports by hawkinspeter · · Score: 1

      It might now be the case that Windows isn't as insecure as it once was, but it certainly used to be true about Windows being insecure by design.

      For example, there was the whole automatically running software from any removable disk/usb stick thing; hiding file extensions so that users didn't know what was executable; running everything as administrator by default.

      The problem was that Windows wasn't designed as a multi-user system and thus didn't have the necessary privilege separation systems that other OS had.

      --
      You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
    11. Re:Actual Reports by nogginthenog · · Score: 2
      The problem was that Windows wasn't designed as a multi-user system and thus didn't have the necessary privilege separation systems that other OS had.

      Windows NT most definately was. You are talking about the 15-20+ year old Windows 1/2/3/9x.

    12. Re:Actual Reports by hawkinspeter · · Score: 1

      You're right, I forgot about NT and versions derived from that.

      With XP, it was almost the default to run everything as Administrator, so the multi-user aspect was made useless. Also, a surprising amount of software relied on having administrator level permissions. The whole idea of storing data in the same directory as the programs made sure that a lot of software wouldn't run unless the user had full write permissions to the "Program Files" directory.

      I think some early bad design decisions hog-tied later versions of Windows as Microsoft wanted to keep compatibility with as much third party software as possible.

      --
      You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
    13. Re:Actual Reports by turgid · · Score: 1

      But did it catch the Peruvian Chicken Spider?

      --
      Stick Men
    14. Re:Actual Reports by Anti-Social+Network · · Score: 1

      I switched from Avira due to constant obnoxious upgrade offers some time ago. If they've gotten better on that I might reconsider - but Avast works fine if you're willing to whitelist a process and then reboot. I mostly run into false positives with flash drives, so all it takes is unplug and replug in that case. What really pisses me off is, as you say, "yanking the keyboard away" and forcibly removing useful utilities which Norton/Mcafee tend to do regularly without the option to cancel. I've taken to setting up a Truecrypt volume that mounts read-only with all those things that tend to trigger it. Mcafee throws a tantrum, wanting to "reboot to remove the threat" every 20 seconds or so, but it gives me time to shut off the automatic protection and then get the work done.

      Avast has also added update checking for 3rd-party programs (e.g. Java) which can conceivably be helpful for those users who aren't very good at keeping individual programs up to date.

      MSE does have a certain minimal functionality that at least provides a bit of CYA for those users who insist they have protection they're going to load but don't seem very good at risk management...

      --
      Goddammit just when I get my first +5 the Beta rolls out and kills everything
    15. Re:Actual Reports by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      No. That is not true. *nix email clients generally do not open attachments automatically,

      Nor do windows. Cryptolocker is launched when the user opens an encrypted zip-file, then doubleclicks the "attachment.exe" inside. *nix will not protect you from that sort of thing.

      While Windows, and its email clients, are more cautious there was a time when even deleting a email caused it to be opened

      Thats inaccurate. There was a security bug with really old versions of outlook (pre 2003) where you could cause that behavior, but it was not a design decision. You could (rightly) criticize that bug, but its not like there havent been code execution bugs in Linux, Firefox, OSX, Safari, etc etc etc. Bringing up ~10+ year old bugs in software thats not even part of the OS as proof that Windows 7 / 8 is insecure, is not really convincing.

    16. Re:Actual Reports by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      Have you tried Comodo AV? You seem like you know what you are doing and Comodo AV lets you get more fine grained than any AV that I have seen. You can tweak the sandbox, the scanning engine, you can tweak pretty much every single behavior of the entire thing so it does what YOU want it to. The reason I don't hand it to my PEBKAC users is that it isn't very hand holding, it treats you like an adult that at least understands a tiny bit about security which AV like Avira and Avast don't.

      As far as Avast its gotten too nasty about yanking the board out of your hand, if I tell it to do something it should do so, not ignore my instructions. Avira can be tweaked to not be so "chatty" just as you can with Avast but if they have any basic understanding its Comodo they get.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    17. Re:Actual Reports by GenTiradentes · · Score: 2

      If you're smart enough to use a decently secure browser, you don't run strange executables or click on ads, and you don't open strange email attachments, you really don't need antivirus. If you run anything other than Windows, doubly so.

    18. Re:Actual Reports by Anti-Social+Network · · Score: 1

      I recall having tried Comodo some time ago, and found that it actually had more options than I wanted. Not that control is a bad thing, but going through a training process where you get interrupted every 5 minutes for a couple weeks by processes asking for permission to run is more trouble than it's worth for me. I like that feature in a firewall, but not so much an AV.

      However, I do most of my security on the browser side with NoScript/NotScripts/AdBlock where most of the garbage doesn't even get onto the machine. All I really need from my AV is a red flag to wave if something should somehow get through and halt at run-time until I decide if I want it to run or not.

      I don't expect my clients to deal with any of it, either. They're mostly in the "barely functional" category of technical literacy. So, relative to Avira (which works, but pops up a "Upgrade to our e-mail filter service!" message every day/boot last time I installed it), Avast is a good balance of effectiveness vs. hassle. I mean, the sandbox gets in the way once in awhile, but all you have to do is wait 15 seconds and then Avast restarts the process normally. That's within my tolerance; daily ads, particularly for my clients, are not.

      --
      Goddammit just when I get my first +5 the Beta rolls out and kills everything
  3. Bullshit by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Norton Internet Security received the strongest protection rating in DTL's tests, detecting 99% of the malware used

    I call bullshit. This seems like a paid advertisement to me. The only reason they used a few undetected ones was because no one would believe anything hit 100%

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    1. Re:Bullshit by 00Monkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Seconded! There's no way in hell NIS performed at this level on a legitimate test. It's shit and that's putting it nicely.

    2. Re:Bullshit by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Appendix B claims that the study was not sponsored. We don't still of course know if they are lying, but I just wanted to point that part out.

    3. Re:Bullshit by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      Either that, or it also ends up having a lot of false positives. Basically, if you flag almost everything as malware, you're going to be able to catch most of the malware. The great thing about MS Security Essentials is that it doesn't try to find reasons to justify it's existence.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    4. Re:Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Norton failed to detect itself. That's why it only got 99%.

    5. Re:Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      You've obviously not used Norton in the recent years have you.
      I swear you nerds are stuck with obsolete knowledge and refuse to accept that things change.

      Microsoft Security Essentials was one of the best when it first came out and is now of the worst. Things go both ways.

    6. Re:Bullshit by chuckugly · · Score: 1

      It's a consistent result across many recent tests, since the re-engineering effort a few years back. NAV/NIS seems very low impact on systems, and is routinely first place for performance and among the top for detection.

    7. Re:Bullshit by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      You're right on. Norton is a system hog. It's almost as bad as the malware it guards against.

    8. Re:Bullshit by cusco · · Score: 2

      I was surprised the last PC that I bought. It had Symantec Anti-virus pre-installed, and I expected to have to go back and delete the services, the folders, and the registry entries that it always left behind. It was surprisingly good about not leaving detritus behind like all the previous versions. Now that they actually have an uninstaller that works maybe they'll work on improving their product next.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    9. Re:Bullshit by mlts · · Score: 1

      I don't understand the point of buying AV software on a non-enterprise basis when a decent program is installed (or downloadable at no charge -- a utility that doesn't throw pop-ups at you demanding subscriptions), the two exceptions would be SpywareBlaster (which updates killbits, adds blocking cookies), and Malwarebytes (which blocks IP addresses.)

      The enterprise is a different story. AV software is a must for jumping through regulatory hoops, and something like System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection or Symantec Endpoint Protection is a must because it offers an audit trail that can be saved to a central server. This is critical come internal audit time, or when the external auditors start knocking.

    10. Re:Bullshit by BitterOak · · Score: 1

      Norton Internet Security received the strongest protection rating in DTL's tests, detecting 99% of the malware used I call bullshit. This seems like a paid advertisement to me. The only reason they used a few undetected ones was because no one would believe anything hit 100%

      I can't help but think that if this really were something sponsored by Norton that they wouldn't have had a free product (Avast) score so closely to Norton (which is a paid product.)

      --
      If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
    11. Re:Bullshit by NIK282000 · · Score: 1

      Norton IS 39% of malware! It eats up processor time, ties up an insane amount of memory and is damn near impossible to remove. In Norton's case the treatment is worse than the disease.

      --
      Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
    12. Re:Bullshit by ApplePy · · Score: 1

      I swear you nerds are stuck with obsolete knowledge and refuse to accept that things change.

      That's a bit simplistic. It's more like this: remember the bailout General Motors got a few years back? What was it, $500 million, taxpayer money? Then they used it to build a new plant, IN MEXICO! That was the moment I say "Fuck GM from now until eternity!" I will never buy a GM product because of that.

      Maybe I'll get an American made car, like a Toyota. Anyway... same idea goes for NIS....

      Norton made such awful software for so long that they don't deserve a second chance. I don't even care if they do it right now; I'm still not going to recommend it to Windows users, unless it's someone I hate; and I'm not going to waste my time testing it to give an honest appraisal. They had their chance, and they blew it. You don't get a reputation like Norton's undeservedly.

      So, for Windows users I like, I still do recommend MSE, and will continue to do so. It's just the least obtrusive and least awful of the lot. (For now, anyway. I used to push AVG but they got awful too.) There's no protecting Windows 100% anyway -- good effort is good enough.

      I don't really care if something gets through it; I get paid to fix the problems.

      Non-customers (aka friends,family, and cheapskates) get converted to Linux.

      --
      That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.
    13. Re:Bullshit by zugmeister · · Score: 1

      I'd love to second that! When the alternative is to "sell" a client on a product you are not affiliated with, and that there doesn't seem to be concrete performance data on, and at best you'll be in next year explaining how the software works on a subscription basis... MSE is free, maintains itself, stays the heck out of the way and just keeps working. It'll notify you if you try to run infectme.pdf.exe from your email but otherwise your client never sees it and thus never turns it off. I've found it to be reasonably effective, but much like the idea that a mediocre camera in your pocket will take a much better picture than the SLR in a drawer back home, it shines because it just keeps running without a bunch of drama.

    14. Re:Bullshit by TomGreenhaw · · Score: 1

      Did they mention that many of the competing products rendered the computers they "protect" slow buggy and sometimes useless?

      --
      Greed is the root of all evil.
  4. On the other hand... by oldhack · · Score: 1

    89.376% of stats from "security" outfits are crap with 99.9118000042% confidence interval.

    --
    Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
  5. MSSE vs Norton by Mr+Foobar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So, either MSSE misses over a third of malware, or use Norton and your computer turns into a zombie with the performance of a 486 running WfWG...

    Hmm, tough choice there.

    --
    -> I dislike sigs...
    1. Re:MSSE vs Norton by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Or use avast?

      Good detection and minimal overhead.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    2. Re:MSSE vs Norton by bloodhawk · · Score: 1, Troll

      Yep, no way in hell anything with Norton on it would run as fast as a 486

    3. Re: MSSE vs Norton by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      In the old days the scanner would still fucking run and take 70% cpu even after uninstallation?!

      A re-image was what I had to do and this annoying thing came with adobe flash and was impossible to get rid off. UGH!

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
  6. They'd get convicted again by atlasdropperofworlds · · Score: 1

    If they made a good security product, I'm pretty sure there would be much gnashing of teeth. Remember the uproar because MS dared to include a browser and media player? I'm sure if they put a decent antivirus product in Windows they'd just get sued again.

    1. Re:They'd get convicted again by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I can see the NSA doing that.

      --
      You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
    2. Re:They'd get convicted again by Seumas · · Score: 1

      MSIE wasn't decent, either. Didn't stop anyone.

      In fact, one might assert that providing a worse bundled product was more damaging as it would cut down other vendors and give users a false sense of security. (If this report were even legitimate).

      Of course, Defender isn't even bundled (you have to actively seek it out, download it, and install it), so I don't think the "anti-trust!" thing even applies.

    3. Re:They'd get convicted again by chuckugly · · Score: 4, Informative

      It used to be pretty decent, at one point MS was trying to recruit me to work on that since I had a lot of AV development experience; I eventually declined and fed them a few resumes who they did hire, but to get to the point, they have done this in the past at least once before. Maintaining AV is an ongoing and expensive endeavor, and MS just doesn't seem to learn that lesson. It's not something they can develop and then tweak for year after year, they need to have developers and AV researchers on it 24/7, every week of the year. That's not cheap and apparently not their model.

    4. Re:They'd get convicted again by TheGoodNamesWereGone · · Score: 1

      Defender *is* bundled in later versions of Windows. Look, far be it from me to defend M$, but as far as the free AVs go, I've recommended MSSE to a lot of my clients. It runs quietly and unobtrusively and doesn't constantly ask the user to make decisions he may not have a clue about, and it doesn't nag you to ***BUY OUR PAID VERSION ZOMFG*** every five minutes. It does its job reasonably well, albeit not perfectly, and like others I'm a little skeptical of this outfit's testing methodology and results. FWIW, out in the field servicing customers' machine I'm seeing fewer virus infections lately and more adware/crapware infections on W7+. XP is another matter. It's always been a Petri dish.

    5. Re:They'd get convicted again by atlasdropperofworlds · · Score: 1

      MSSE is not bundled with 7. Defender (which is the same thing) is bundled in 8 and 8.1.

    6. Re:They'd get convicted again by atlasdropperofworlds · · Score: 1

      Insecure OS? It seems to be holding up with linux just fine at pwn2own.

    7. Re:They'd get convicted again by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      IE 6 was the best browser. Don't believe me? Go google Slashdot stories on Netscape from 1999 to 2002?

      IE as much as I hated MS winning was the browser I kept using as it was more standards compliant and faster browser. It supported MS CSS while no browser supported W3c CSS at all. It rendered more properly code than Netscape and even early Mozilla!

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    8. Re:They'd get convicted again by TheGoodNamesWereGone · · Score: 1

      You need to make it more plain when you joke around like that

    9. Re:They'd get convicted again by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I was typing that on a phone and didn't have time to elaborate. IE was only popular when IE 6 was light years ahead of Netscape 4.7 in 2001. Netscape 5 and 6 I did not even bother as websites would not even render correctly. Not because the IE era started on the web, but because there were more quirks in thsoe pieces of dinosaur doo than even IE itself!

      People use what is best. IE no longer has the strangle hold because it is not the best thing since sliced bread anymore.

      In 2001 through 2003 I used it with Mozilla, but not since Firefox .9x did I finally feel a worthy competitor came.

        By 2004 it was an insecure old awkward browser but not terrible. By 2006 it was a POS HORRIBLE abomination! This is when average Joes started using alternative browsers as techies told them to use Firefox.

      MSE now is going bad and I no longer use it just like I no longer use IE unless I am at work. People use what is best and yes a good 20% are sheep but the rest will find something else.

      I think MSE came about just like IE (since analogy was brought up) as a better alternative as everything else sucked worse. Norton was worse than the actual damn virus! Symentec same ... McCrappy just as bad. AVG would work and then corrupt your Windows installation, etc.

      Now Norton is re-engineered and is a great lightweight and secure again though geeks wont touch it now. Avast is much better and we have Avirri and Panda which are ok and fairly decent for free or low cost.

      MSE is ... well old. It is scanner from an older era that does not have the whistles of active protection and sandboxing. Just like IE it became an abomination as it never was great (just sucked less) and became out of date where everyone is going one way, MS is staying put in technology.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
  7. Figured by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    I just assumed that from the start. It's better than nothing, though.

    1. Re:Figured by TheSimkin · · Score: 1

      It is worse than nothing. This gives people a false sense of security when they should be wary.

  8. McAfee is worse by FlameWise · · Score: 1

    Thank you.

    Reading that, the more important news is probably that McAfee scored even worse.

    L.O.L.

  9. Re:Bullshit February 2013 DennisTech by retroworks · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.geek.com/microsoft/microsoft-security-essentials-strikes-out-on-questionable-av-test-1538990/ Geek.com outed this testing firm last Friday for A) running MSE without applied windows updates, and B) accepting sponsorship from tested softwares.

    --
    Gently reply
  10. Re:Bullshit February 2013 DennisTech by retroworks · · Score: 1

    Sorry that's last February not Friday

    --
    Gently reply
  11. Re:Norton much improved by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

    It is not that steamy bloated piece of shit known as 2007! Other labs report it as one of the best with minimal performance degration believe it or not.

    It is re engineered and has a tarnished image like real player and IE which are hard to break.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  12. Subject lines are for subjects! by tqk · · Score: 2

    If they made it good they'd just get hit with an antitrust lawsuit.

    Yeah, and considering what happened last time, that'll have 'em shaking in their boots.

    "Baseline performance" and "failing miserably while lieing to customers" don't mean the same thing. Not catching zero-days is one thing. Only catching ca. 30% is worse than flipping a coin.

    --
    "Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
  13. Sounds about right by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you look at AV Comparitives, who seem to do pretty good testing, MSE is about 90%. That's quite low (though there are commercial apps that are worse) but the tradeoff is zero false positives on essentially every test.

    It's certainly not what you get if you want highest security, but it does a reasonably good job, and doesn't generate false positives, which can piss off newbie users and make them want the AV scanner off. It also updates definitions via Windows Update, if its internal updater has an issue, which is nice for people who won't mind after their AV software.

    It's not what I use, but it isn't a bad baseline. I'd sure as hell use it rather than Norton :P.

    1. Re:Sounds about right by chuckugly · · Score: 1

      True, and most of the misses tend to be malware that's not in circulation much at the moment.

    2. Re:Sounds about right by gman003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      More to the point:

      Defense, of any sort, requires layers. And with enough layers, each individual layer can have quite a significant failure without compromising the integrity of the whole defense. My browsing habits, AdBlock, browser-based malware blocking, antivirus, and OS-level permission limits - all of those protect me. Each one probably only has a 90% success rate, but that combines to 99.999% effectiveness (assuming each layer is fully independent - in reality, stuff that can break one layer is likely able to break some of the others, so it may only be 99.9% effective, which is still pretty damn good).

      I use MSE not because it's the best, but because it's the least intrusive. It nags me to run a scan about once a month, and I think only once has it flagged any malware (false positive - I do scans with MalwareBytes every few months, which is much better at detection and removal but does nothing for real-time protection, and it did not find anything). Other than that, it doesn't put any noticeable load on my system or bother me with meaningless alerts - unlike even "good" AV like AVG.

  14. Re:Oh look... by tqk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... based on obsolete knowledge from before 2008 and from expired copies not giving the right protection.

    Meanwhile, free software ticks along happily needing none of this BS. Funny that.

    --
    "Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
  15. Not that i love MS by avivgr · · Score: 1

    but i would seriously question the source of any "objective report" and check who paid for the report. I know how these things work....

    1. Re:Not that i love MS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      These same guys have been caught out before publishing dodgy reports and were uncovered to be sponsored, combine that with their unwillingness to reveal there testing methodology I would say these results should be utterly ignored. There are plenty of legimate reviews that crap like this can be safely flushed down the shitter.

  16. Norton detected 99% by istartedi · · Score: 2

    Norton detected 99%. The other 1% is Norton.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    1. Re:Norton detected 99% by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Here's hoping Norton can lift it's game.

      Though it's kind of hard to delete a file when it must first terminate the running process.

  17. Re:Oh look... by jones_supa · · Score: 1

    The bugginess of free software causes even more problems though.

  18. Re:Oh look... by tqk · · Score: 2

    The bugginess of free software causes even more problems though.

    The bugginess of commercial software made me ecstatic to find free software, in '93. I've also watched clients choose products based on features advertised as current which didn't work until years later.

    This entire story points out only one of the massive flaws in one (or a few) commercial software package(s). You should lose your prejudice. Here's one for you: perl vs. Java.

    --
    "Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
  19. Re:Oh look... by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

    It isn't the worst possible thing because of its detection rate. It is the worst possible thing because of the impact it has on a system, many cases the impact is worse than what it is protecting against, add to that the intrusive annoying nature of the product and you get something that is like chopping your legs off to avoid stubbing your toes.

  20. Re: Oh look... by tqk · · Score: 1

    Yes, it does try to protect itself from harm, as it should. If you don't know how or why something is, you've no business doing anything to it.

    --
    "Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
  21. It is such a dis service to write this and not say by ralphaostrander · · Score: 1

    Who had the 99

  22. Re:Norton much improved by Overzeetop · · Score: 1

    It may be wonderful, but based on what happened in the early-mid 2000s I won't even look at Norton. I ditched Kaspersky when I bought a 3 license package for the office, but didn't need two of the S/Ns for a couple of months. When I installed them, I found that the timer on all three licenses expired based on when the first one was installed.

    I'm not in a high-risk environment, so I'll stick with defender for the time being.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  23. Re:Norton much improved by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    I use Avast. This version I use now is pretty good. It is free. If you put it in game/silent mode it wont ever bug you. I notice minimal performance downgrade.

    The good news is most AV software is rapidly improving with the exception of McCrappy. True Norton's answer for malware was to encapsolate the whole damn hammer! Worse, may the lord have mercy on your soul if you ran it on Vista! The disk would spin to eternity with indexing and with the whole virtual disk layer encapsulated doing a scam for each damn byte.

    If you must use Windows you would be insane not to run anything. It is a sad reality but with all the malware and trojans using flash, zero day exploits, and popular ad networks you can't ever be secure. Even slashdot had malware hosted ads were you would get 0wned if you came here and had flash installed :-(

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  24. Simpler Explaination by quantaman · · Score: 1

    I don't know much about the current state of software viruses (I'm a Linux user!) but my understanding was a lot of them looked for suspicious behaviour rather than straight up definitions.

    In that case if I'm a Malware writer it's nice if I can sneak around 3rd party anti-virus software, but it's not essential.

    But if Security Essentials is built into Window's and it catches my suspicious behaviour every time, well there's not a big niche for my virus. Just like web developers would make sure their pages rendered under IE malware writers have to make sure their code runs under Security Essentials.

    Note, this is a good sign for 3rd party anti-virus companies since it implies there's always going to be an opportunity to supply a better product.

    --
    I stole this Sig
  25. Sponsored? by dcooper_db9 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From page 19 of the report:

    What is the difference between a vendor and a partner vendor?

    Partner vendors contribute financially to the test in return for a preview of the results, an opportunity to challenge results before publication and the right to use award logos in marketing material. Other participants first see the results on the day of publication and may not use award logos for any purpose.

    Do you share samples with the vendors?

    Partner vendors are able to download all samples from us after the test is complete. Other vendors may request a subset of the threats that compromised their products in order for them to verify our results. The same applies to client-side logs, including the network capture files. There is a small administration fee for the provision of this service.

    --
    I do not block ads. I do block third party scripts.
  26. Re:Bullshit February 2013 DennisTech by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

    Geek.com outed this testing firm last Friday for A) running MSE without applied windows updates

    I noticed that too while reading the PDF.
    But it doesn't seem like much of a defense for MSE's and McAfee's extremely poor showing.

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  27. Have you ever used it? MSE is great. by Slagothor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I care about the security of MSE a great deal. MSE does what Av should do. It also does it in the background like it should and out of the way. MSE is a program/tool that is outstanding. Surprised to see it come out of Microsoft. If a paid version were needed/required, I'd pay, and I don't pay for Av protection.

  28. Firefox: Disabling Javascript via about:config by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "Mozilla, for instance, removed the ability for Firefox users to simply disable Javascript,"

    Can you disable it via:

    1. about:config
    2. javascript.enabled -> Toggle to FALSE

    ?

  29. Is there a place to download malware? by Trax3001BBS · · Score: 1

    I used to use http://vx.netlux.org/ It was a malware repository, everything that had been released and updated regularly.
    It was a serious board for everything malware and filled a nitch. The boards country made any site that carried malware (short term) as illegal.
    They fought for awhile and now you can see it's gone.

    I always deleted the malware I downloaded, those I wish I'd of kept now.

    Is there a place to download malware to check ones malware prevention/detection?
    And not the EICAR test file.

    Thanks

  30. All AV suck by MrL0G1C · · Score: 1

    All I want is a program that combines Autoruns with StartupMonitor. and steps in when any Dll or executable is about to be modified, hell, the OS should do that anyway.

    Over 5 years I have enjoyed running my PC virus free. and without the annoyance of anti-virus software's constant nagging. VirusTotal for when I'm in doubt and a scan with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for when I get a tinge of paranoia.

    --
    Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
    1. Re:All AV suck by reikae · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry but this really looked like a Mycleanpc spam at first glance :)

  31. Norton can't catch the recycler virus 855366bc.exe by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 2

    On the PDF http://dennistechnologylabs.com/reports/s/a-m/2013/DTL_2013_Q4_Home.1.pdf it lists Norton as the 3rd best antivirus, with 97% ranking.

    But Norton has failed to catch even the most simple "Recycler Virus".

    One of my co-worker's thumbdrive has the "recycler virus", specifically the "855366bc.exe", and I tested the Symantec antivirus on several systems (from the 2012 edition all the way to the latest 2014) and none caught that virus !

    Perhaps Norton is focus too much on the sophisticated virus and forgotten all about the simpler, old fashion ones.

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  32. Re:Oh look... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

    Really? Android has no malware issues then...?

  33. Would love to see what people use by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 1

    Would love to hijack this thread and see what everyone uses since /. ers are likely more sophisticated and knowing in their selection than most ....

  34. Missed your chance by Anti-Social+Network · · Score: 1

    MSE used to be a pay-for service called Live OneCare from Microsoft, and as noted above used to be a separate product originally written by another company. So it's more of a good strategic acquisition rather than an inspired idea by the MS execs themselves. I don't know exactly why they went free, but you missed your chance to pay for it, unless you feel like getting Forefront licenses

    --
    Goddammit just when I get my first +5 the Beta rolls out and kills everything
  35. What some call malware by Bryan+Bytehead · · Score: 1

    others call a utility.

    MSE doesn't give a damn about Produkey. Every other antivirus I've ran wants to erase it.

    I have a program called vfat.com, which was a disk defragmenter for MS-DOS, working only on FAT formatted disks. I have used it hundreds of times for years back in the days of dial-up 2400bps BBS. Now, everybody screams that it's some kind of virus. The damn file predates the Morris worm, and you're telling me that it's a virus, the VFAT virus?

    Another program, pskill seems to be on most other antivirus lists. I think it got corrected, but I remember when mIRC was considered a virus because somebody was using it (surreptitiously) for command and control.

    --
    Bryan
  36. Re: Oh look... by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 1

    Yeah, it just needs different BS.

    "I just want to install a program, don't ask me for that password gobblegook."

    How is that different? Windows does the exact same thing, unless you don't have a password set.
    If you're running under an administrator account, you don't get asked for a password, but that's the same thing that happens on Linux under a root account.

    I fail to see a reason for your complaint here.....

    --
    "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......