Microsoft Security Essentials Leaves 39 Percent of Malware to Reach Your Computer

[BalanceOfPower]

December 20th, 2013, 09:28 GMT

Microsoft Security Essentials Leaves 39 Percent of Malware to Reach Your Computer

Microsoft claims that Security Essentials is one of the best anti-virus solutions on the market, but tests performed by various independent labs across the world prove otherwise.

Dennis Technology Labs (DTL) has tested a total of nine security products to determine which one provides the best protection on Windows 7 computer, including Microsoft’s very own Security Essentials.

While Norton Internet Security and Kaspersky Internet Security 2014 got the best score by blocking 99 percent of the threats, Microsoft Security Essentials allowed 39 percent of the malware to get past its security features and reach the vulnerable computer.

“To create a fair testing environment, each product was installed on a clean Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit target system. The operating system was updated with Service Pack 1 (SP1), although no later patches or updates were applied,” the company said in a press statement.

“We test with Windows 7 SP1 due to the high prevalence of internet threats that work with this operating system. The prevalence of these threats suggests that there are many systems with this level of patching currently connected to the internet. At the time of testing Windows 7 was being used heavily by consumers and businesses.”

As far as Security Essentials is concerned, the anti-virus tests revealed that it’s fairly good at handling legitimate software, but it fails miserably when it comes to blocking malware.

“Microsoft Security Essentials handled legitimate software very well, blocking only one legitimate program. However, it was very poor at protecting the system from malware, failing to protect against 39 per cent of the threats,” the tests indicated.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a freeware anti-virus product offered to pre-Windows 8 users, and integrated into Microsoft’s modern operating systems as Windows Defender, thus offering real-time protection to all users who make the move to these platforms.