Chinese Security Vendor Qihoo 360 Caught Cheating In Anti-virus Tests

Bismillah writes: China's allegedly largest security vendor Qihoo 360 has fessed up to supplying custom versions of its AV for testing according to an investigation by Virus Bulletin, AV-Comparatives and AV-Test. "On requesting an explanation from Qihoo 360 for their actions (PDF), the firm confirmed that some settings had been adjusted for testing, including enabling detection of types of files such as keygens and cracked software, and directing cloud lookups to servers located closer to the test labs. After several requests for specific information on the use of thirdparty engines, it was eventually confirmed that the engine configuration submitted for testing differed from that available by default to users."

Comments

Broken test?

[AmiMoJo]

If the test is checking for non-virus files like keygens it sounds like the test is broken. AV software should detect things that are harmful to your computer, not things that software vendors don't like but are otherwise harmless.

I'm not surprised they ship with keygen detection off in China.