Kaspersky’s Anti-Malware Solution Achieves Highest Rating in the Latest AV-Comparatives tests

Woburn, Mass., – December 7, 2007 –Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of Internet threat management solutions that protect against all forms of malicious Internet threats, announces that Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0 (KAV 7.0) has been awarded the highest certification in the most recent AV-Comparatives test: Advanced+.  AV-Comparatives.org is a respected Austrian antivirus test lab. 

AV-Comparatives conducted a series of tests to compare the effectiveness of various antivirus solutions' on-demand detection of malicious programs (by the program scanner). This method makes it possible to estimate the effectiveness of the heuristic analyzer, one of the components of the proactive protection system. The test included 17 antivirus products for home users with antivirus databases that were dated August 5, 2007. The sample of malicious programs used in the tests appeared after this date.

Based on the results, KAV 7.0 was awarded the highest certification—Advanced+, which confirms the program has the highest level of detection of new malicious programs with minimal false positives using the antivirus program's heuristic analyzer.

“New malicious programs and viruses appear every day and it is evident that antivirus database updates, even hourly, are not enough to provide users with reliable protection from possible Internet threats. There is always a time “gap” between the appearance of a new threat and the release of an update. So to provide effective antivirus protection it is important to effectively detect new threats” said Andreas Clementi, the head of the AV-Comparatives test lab.

The heuristic analyzer is only one of the components of the proactive protection module included in Kaspersky Lab’s products. Kaspersky’s products provide comprehensive protection that also includes behavior blocking technology, along with traditional signature-based antivirus.  The effectiveness of behavior blocker was tested by AV-Сomparatives in June 2007 with the test developers stating that “The results of the tests performed with the randomly chosen malicious programs have confirmed the highest protection level and the effectiveness of the behavior blocker, which is awarded the Proactive Protection Award of the AV-Comparatives test laboratory”

“We believe that the most effective endpoint security solutions combine both proactive and reactive technologies to combat the threat malicious Internet attacks,” said Jeff Aliber, Senior Director, Product Marketing at Kaspersky Lab.  “Unlike many of our competitors, we focus on optimizing each of these technologies to provide a multifaceted approach to delivering the highest possible protection available.”

To find out more about the report “Comparison of different malware protection technologies”, or for more information about the Proactive Protection Award please visit http://www.av-comparatives.org.

About Kaspersky Lab

Kaspersky Lab delivers the world’s most immediate protection against IT security threats, including viruses, spyware, crimeware, hackers, phishing, and spam. Kaspersky Lab products provide superior detection rates and the industry’s fastest outbreak response time for home users, SMBs, large enterprises and the mobile computing environment. Kaspersky^® technology is used worldwide inside the products and services of the industry’s leading IT security solution providers. Learn more at http://www.kaspersky.com/. For the latest on antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-spam and other IT security issues and trends, visit www.viruslist.com.