Some Antivirus Tools Wildly Effective Against Zero-Day Malware
A Trojan or other malicious program that's been analyzed by antivirus researchers is very easy to detect and block. Antivirus programs handle such threats using a kind of file fingerprint known as a signature. In many cases, a single well-crafted signature can match a whole family of related malware. The real problem involves detecting zero-day threats; malware or malware variants that have never been seen before. In a recent test by AV-Test Institute, several antivirus tools proved wildly effective against zero-day threats, while others failed miserably.
Zero-Day Winners
To evaluate the effectiveness of each product's zero-day malware protection, AV-Test's researchers exposed them to newly-discovered malware every day for two months. The samples included executable files, Web-based attacks, and email threats. They tested all products simultaneously and noted which ones successfully detected and blocked the malware samples.
Impressively, ten of the 25 tested security products achieved 100% protection in both months of testing, among them Bitdefender Internet Security (2014), Kaspersky Internet Security (2014), and Norton Internet Security (2014). Read more.
