Fundamental principles of testing anti-malware products from AMTSO.

It is very exciting to see that finally AMTSO published two documents on its Website (http://www.amtso.org/documents/cat_view/13-amtso-principles-and-guidelines.html):

• AMTSO Fundamental Principles of Testing
• AMTSO Best Practices for Dynamic Testing

These documents were posted by AMTSO for public comments as RFC versions back in August 2008. Most of the comments from http://blog.amtso.org actually got reflected in the final text so AMTSO did incorporate many different opinions in its standards, which is a good thing!

The most important thing about these standards is that there is now hope that the quality of anti-malware reviews will improve over time because vendors and testers can work more closely together for the benefit of all computer users.

Here is what Jeff Green, Senior Vice President of McAfee Avert Labs said about this event: “While there have been many great security software reviews in the past, many poor reviews reviews have confused or misled people. We are glad to see that Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization has taken this problem by the horns and formalized the principles of fair testing. This is a significant milestone that should skew the balance towards fair and scientific testing, providing users with a true viewpoint on the security protection vendors provide.”

Let’s hope that there will be more standards from AMTSO and they would look as good as those just published.