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Industry Group Defining Malware Testing
David Utter
Staff Writer
2008-02-11
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To fight the enemy, one has to know the enemy, and the security vendors backing the recently formed Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) wish to do that.
 | | Industry Group Defining Malware Testing |  |
What one company sees as malware may look different to another vendor. Those differences of opinion make it difficult for the public to understand the threat of malware. The industry wants to change that situation for the better.
The debut of AMTSO started modestly, with a mission statement and charter posted for display. Planning began in May 2007, at a Reykjavik workshop, and evolved during a December 2007 conference in Seoul.
Over 40 organizations signed on to the AMTSO charter, including heavy hitters like Microsoft, McAfee, Trend Micro, and Symantec. The group includes software vendors and various testing organizations.
Symantec researcher Mark Kennedy said on the company's blog that the discussion began when considering how testing groups consider the effectiveness of a security suite. He likened the existing method of assessing static file scanning to "taking the results of seat belt tests and extrapolating the total safety of a motor vehicle."
Eventually this should yield better independent testing of how effectively security products detect malware. The real trick, according to Kennedy, will be to convince reviewers and other security pros that the new standards will be an improvement over the old ones.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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