New year, new awards for Avast Business Endpoint Protection

Product awards for Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus kick off the year

Tests by AV-Comparatives place the endpoint protection solution among highest reviewed

In the fight against cybercrime, you need strong, reliable layered security protection. That’s why our Avast Business team is continually strengthening and improving our Avast Business Endpoint Solutions protection and Network Security Solutions.

In fact, our Avast Business Endpoint Protection ranked among the highest rated antivirus software by independent testing lab AV-Comparatives in a series of recent tests in its second-half year report. The Business Main-Test Series included four tests as well as a user interface review, recognizing Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus and our Management Console as an Approved Business Product. 

To achieve this award, antivirus software must score at least 90% in the Malware Protection Test, with zero false alarms, as well as in the Real-World Protection Test. An additional test, The Enhanced Real-World Protection Test, recognized Antivirus Pro Plus as a Certified Advanced Threat Protection Enterprise Product. This award is given to antivirus software that blocks at least 8 out of the 15 attacks in the test — Antivirus Pro Plus blocked 14 out of 15.

All tests were conducted from August-November 2019, evaluating our antivirus software’s ability to detect and defend against the latest cyber threats, including zero-day malware, drive-by attacks, downloads from websites, attacks via infected emails, and more. 

Check out the summarized verdict from the AV-Comparatives’ team:

 “Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus is a strong cloud-based product aimed at the small to medium-sized business. The UI is clear and clean, and the defaults are sensible for the smaller organisation. A non-technical user should not have any problems deploying this and keeping track of events. It’s probably aimed more at the smaller end of the organisational size. However, it still has grouping and profile capabilities to protect the larger estates. We liked the straightforward nature of the platform.”

Antivirus Pro Plus scores high in all tests 

The Business Main-Test Series included the following tests:

• The Real-World Protection Test: This test mimics online malware attacks that a typical business user might encounter when surfing the Internet. The test included 844 malicious URLs.  Antivirus Pro Plus protected against 832, earning a 98.6% real-world protection rate. 

• The Malware Protection Test: This test considers a scenario in which the malware pre-exists on the disk or enters the test system via e.g. the local area network or removable device, rather than directly from the Internet. For this test, 1,278 recent malware samples were used. Antivirus Pro Plus blocked every sample with zero false alarms, achieving a 100% malware protection rate.

• False-Positives Test: In addition to each of the protection tests, a False-Positives Test checks whether any products falsely identify legitimate software as harmful.

• The Performance Test:  This test looks at the impact each product has on system performance, using categories that included Slow, Mediocre, Fast, and Very Fast, across activities such as file copying, archiving/unarchiving, installing/uninstalling applications, launching applications, downloading files, and browsing websites. Antivirus Pro Plus scored Very Fast.

• The Enhanced Real-World Test: This test evaluates the ability to block sophisticated attacks such as file-less threats and exploits, and other Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). APTs are targeted cyberattacks that employ a complex set of methods and techniques to penetrate information systems. The testing included fileless attacks, penetration tests to ensure attack vectors are covered, and attack methods such as command-line stacks. Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus scored well in both the initial and final round of testing, blocking 14 out of 15 threats.

• User-Interface Review: This review is included in the second-half year report and completes the picture of each products’ capabilities.

Clear and clean UI, comprehensive dashboard, tasks, device settings, and more

Here are some highlights following the tests:

“Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus is a strong cloud-based product aimed at the small to medium-sized business. The UI is clear and clean, and the defaults are sensible for the smaller organisation. A non-technical user should not have any problems deploying this and keeping track of events. It’s probably aimed more at the smaller end of the organisational size. However, it still has grouping and profile capabilities to protect the larger estates. We liked the straightforward nature of the platform.”

“The default Dashboard page gives a comprehensive and clear overview of the installation and how it is running. You see how many licenses you have deployed, how many are awaiting activation, when the latest scan was run, and how many threats have been found. The status display at the top of the page warns of any problems, such as out-of-date computers or malware detections. It is a straightforward and reassuring overview for the non-expert administrator. There are also summaries of the patch management, OS distribution, and threat detection situations.”

“Tasks is a powerful scheduler area. Here, the administrator can create tasks to run particular events. For example, do a quick scan every day at 2 p.m. You can also use it to send a short message to your devices, to update the device, and to shut it down too. It is a simple task manager, but has useful capabilities for the small office and organisation.

“Device Settings allows you to create a settings template which is then applied to a group of devices. In here, you have access to all the control functionality for the device. So, you can determine that file scanning is on, the antispam service is running, the firewall must be applied, and so forth. From these templates, you can apply policies to devices.”

“The Reports tab gives access to all the statistics about the system and its collection of users. You can drill through here to get a view, and it is a better and more comprehensive overview than the Dashboard view.”

New Avast Business Patch Management recognized

AV-Comparatives also reviewed our new Patch Management, which enables you to automate your entire patching and updating process for Windows Operating Systems and third-party software, right from our Management Console or CloudCare platform.

Here’s what AV-Comparatives had to say:

“At the time of writing (September 2019), Patches was marked as a “new” feature in the console menu column. It monitors the state of installed applications, and advises when newer versions are available. Both Microsoft and third-party applications are covered. The status display at the top of the dashboard will warn if any devices are missing critical or non-critical patches. A link here takes you to the Patches page, which shows you which devices are affected. Clicking on a device displays a list of the missing patches, together with convenient download links.”

Antivirus Pro Plus: AV-Comparatives-tested and approved

Achieving these high product test scores is one more way that we can demonstrate our commitment to providing the total security you need to effectively protect today’s business environments.

For more information about these recent tests, click here.  For a free 30-day trial of Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus, start here.