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Microsoft Acknowledges Anti-Virus Failed VB100 Test

By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews

February 6, 2007, 7:48 PM

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to BetaNews this afternoon that it has learned its Windows Live OneCare anti-virus package has failed a test conducted by the respected British laboratory Virus Bulletin using Windows Vista Business Edition, disqualifying it from carrying the "VB100" logo denoting 100% detection of a selected battery of common "in the wild" viruses.

However, the information Microsoft gave us indicates the company is not yet certain - at least officially - why it failed the VB100 test, nor has it apparently tested to verify Virus Bulletin's results.

"We are looking closely at the methodology and results of the test to ensure that Windows Live OneCare performs better in future tests," the Microsoft spokesperson told us, "and, most importantly, as part of our ongoing work to continually enhance Windows Live OneCare to ensure the highest level of protection and service that we can provide our customers. As we have more information to share from our review of this particular test moving forward, we will keep you updated via our anti-malware blog."

For an anti-virus product to pass muster, it must positively detect a series of known viruses without emanating a false positive, in as many as three trials on two separate machines. Products which passed the February battery of tests included: both CA's Home and eTrust (enterprise) products, Fortinet's FortiClient, F-Secure Anti-Virus, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 (which was added to the ZoneAlarm suite last November), Sophos Anti-Virus 6.5, and Symantec AntiVirus 10.2.

Joining OneCare on the failure list this month is McAfee's VirusScan Enterprise 8.1 (which might have garnered the headline had Microsoft not stolen the spotlight), and the Norman Virus Control product recently integrated into eEye's Blink Professional suite.

This is not the first time OneCare has run into trouble with Virus Bulletin. Just after the service went live in November, the lab reported it had detected Google's Gmail as a virus, flagging systems containing Gmail components as infected.

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By u2v

edited Feb 8, 2007 - 2:34 PM

Do you really want to buy anti-virus from your OS provider:
http://www.upgrade2vista...y-from-your-os-provider/

Score: 0

By uberfly

edited Feb 8, 2007 - 12:52 AM

This is no big deal. If their One Care AV drops two out of three, then really start worrying. It's too new right now to make any kind of accurate judgment. All this amounts to is just a good opportunity for all the anti-MS monkeys to jump on the football.

Score: 0

By Adrian79

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 8:21 PM

Breaking NEWs... they found a fix.. its called NOD32 ;-)

Score: 0

By Dev3lop3

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 5:50 PM

The grass is very BROWN on your side of the fence... lol

Score: 0

By CarLox

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 5:29 PM

well **** that antivirus, try panda software www.pandasoftware.com and youll see that is way better than any other antivirus

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

edited Feb 7, 2007 - 2:17 PM

No antivirus can be perfect anymore IMO because there is simply way too much stuff coming out day after day, and not enough programmers, testers, and test environments, to put the updates through quickley enough to be effective. It is sad really, but the real problem is that malware is 100% different than it was just 3 years ago.

The majority of malware (meaning trojans, worms, spyware, etc.) are now only slightly modified versions of previous malware--except that they are written more by professionals than they are little hacker kids like they used to be. These professionals probe the internet 24/7 finding the vulnerable computers through a series of tests, they write a virus or modify one so that none of the PCs that they have determined to be vulnerable can detect these new varients, then they attack. All it takes is 100 PC's with key loggers, etc., to steal their identities, get their passwords, monitor their surfing habits and sell them to the "market research" firms, and so forth. It is pathetically simple to do, and makes so much money for so little trouble that it is becoming TOO EASY.

Is it Microsoft's fault? No--not really except that they are the easiest target. Pre- SP2 Windows XP installs are at least a part of it, but the REAL problem is the market research companies--let's prove these companies are encouraging hackers to write viruses to sell them data, and sue the sh!t out of them and see how many hackers will risk the possibility of getting caught then. THAT will fix the problem.

(EDIT: By "fix" I don't mean viruses will disappear by any means--I mean that the horrific virus attacks and the inability to ensure your PC is safe using malware protection programs alone will be cured. Never will every antivirus be perfect, but these days there are viruses that absolutely nothing protects you against as far as antivirus/antispyware software. They simply can't keep up.)

Score: 0

By ConceptJunkie

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 1:19 PM

Gee, and just days after billg is talking smack about how great Vista security is and how OSX is pwned every single day.

Whatta chump.

Score: 0

By CarLox

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 5:29 PM

hey dude, dont be dumb, dont you see that ****ing Microsoft has more than 80% of the market?

Score: 0

By alphatrigon

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 10:24 AM

yay! Does that sound weird from a huge MS/Vista fan? hope, not, lol. This just means the 3rd party security app companies have something to add to Vista and no longer need to think MS is taking their market away. All good with me :)

Score: 0

By rsmiff

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 9:49 AM

Why is the title listing it as Vista Antivirus when it was Windows Live OneCare? Is this an attempt to smear Vista? I'm pretty sure you can install OneCare on XP. Probably even 2000 pro. You're all so pathetically after Microsoft that you'll try anything to smear the name. I love both Microsoft and Linux OSs. They each have their own uses and areas of expertise...DEAL WITH IT!!

Score: 0

By Meth

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 10:34 AM

I agree this title is at best misleading and at worst just plain wrong. I'm not sure this indicates malice on Mr. Fulton's part or just incompetence. You are correct OneCare runs on XP systems, I was in the beta and have it on my XP boxes right now. It does not run on Win2k though I suspect that's not a technical limit but a policy one since Win2k support has expired. Likewise I'm fairly certain that Vista doesn't come with OneCare anyway (though there may be a link to download it in there little security console).

I can't say I'd recommend OneCare though, the only reason I'm still running it is because they gave me an all but free year subscription for being in the beta so I figured I'd give them some time to improve it before I ditched it.

Score: 0

By caronn

edited Feb 7, 2007 - 8:08 AM

According to the test, "Microsoft Live OneCare caught 99.91% of the known active viruses it was tested against. This left it vulnerable to 37 separate malicious programs." And that was the *worst* result. A 99.91% success rate isn't exactly horrible

Score: 0

By Vimm

posted Feb 8, 2007 - 12:21 PM

It may not be horrible, but it only takes one virus to kill your computer. If someone were to shoot 1000 bullets at you would you be happy if 99.91% of them missed?

If you're reading this then your computer is connected to the internet so it's constantly being barraged by viruses and worms, old and new. It only takes one hit to do damage and it's not always possible to repair it. If 100% is possible, why settle for anything less?

Score: 0

By shy_one

posted Feb 6, 2007 - 10:47 PM

More interested to know how many of the malware being used in the test would install on Vista without requireing the admin password.

At least F-Secure passed my service provider gives it for free not as customisable as most would like but its good.

Score: 0

By Tenoq

posted Feb 6, 2007 - 11:57 PM

Even if it did require the admin password, your average user will just punch it in and "click OK to download."

Score: 0

By Meth

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 10:24 AM

Well if the user overrides the protection then that's their own fault. I for one don't want to run an anti-virus where I can't override it's decisions even with administrator rights. What if there's a false positive in that case? Software developers can only do so much, at some point the user has to know SOMETHING.

Score: 0

By Ramhound

posted Feb 6, 2007 - 10:05 PM

We don't even know why it failed, why would they release a report, and not explain it to at least Microsoft.

I can understand the general public, something seems strange, and in that past Europe isn't exactly a source of truth when it comes to Microsoft and making stuff about them ( saying they were late to pay a fee, then changing the story, wtf was with that ).

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Feb 6, 2007 - 8:31 PM

According to this article:
http://www.virusbtn.com/.../vb_news/2007/02_06.xml

It would seem that McAfee has failed due to its interaction with UAC on Vista. Since the OneCare has failed on Vista as well, I would draw a similar conclusion for the product.

Score: 0

By pickchevy

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 6:12 AM

From the article you referenced:

"However, when McAfee's manual update procedure was run it failed to apply the update to the product, despite both on-screen messages and logs stating that the product had been updated successfully."

Now, that's just messed up!

Score: 0

By athome

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 2:30 AM

I have installed it on vista business,(which it states has the problem) and I have not had any trouble yet. I currently am leaving the account with the UAC enabled and trying to see if the UAC notices really impede or are as annoying as some indicate. So far, no problems.

I do wish we could get better information with regard to what area it failed. McAfee, on the other hand, is turning out to be a real pain for many of my customers. Currently, I have had to uninstall it from 21 customer machines due to incompatiblilty as well as lockups, and blocked network access for no apparent reason. There are truly too many variables in the program for many people to understand and it severly hinders the performace of the machines.

Score: 0

By pickchevy

edited Feb 7, 2007 - 6:10 AM

Even people who get McAfee free with their Comcast service won't use it. The incompatibility you mentioned seemed to be the major problem before this. I ran into the blocked network access you mentioned and the only way I was able to solve the problem was by removing the program.

It's been a while since I tested the McAfee program, but I do recall that one of the most severe difficulties involved the program saying that the admin account did not have the necessary permissions to perform certain functions. I remember wondering how much worse this problem would be under UAC. The McAfee forums were full of posts indicating the same problem. Too bad they didn't take care of it then. Instead, they blamed it on Microsoft and told their customers to complain to Redmond.

Score: 0

By ConceptJunkie

posted Feb 7, 2007 - 5:03 PM

Perhaps. I stopped using McAfee years ago because of performance problems. Every time I would access a large self-extracting RAR file (I create them a lot) it would totally devastate my machine trying to check it for viruses.

However, complaining to Redmond isn't such a bad idea, after all, it isn't McAfee's fault that there are millions of zombie Windows machines in the first place or that a Windows machine connected to the internet can be infected with viruses before you can get all the service packs installed.

Score: 0

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