The testing methods of AV-Comparatives are continually developed and improved, in order to keep pace with the latest malware threats. AV-Comparatives aims the highest technical standards to be met, whilst maintaining strict independence. In doing so, we welcome and would like to thank for the support of academic bodies such as:
Partners
Innovation
Constantinus Award Austrian Government
Together with the University of Innsbruck, AV‐Comparatives has developed a procedure for the systematic testing of antivirus software, which automatically simulates the actions of a computer user surfing the Internet, without any human intervention being required. Considering the huge number of malicious programs that appear every day, performing these tests manually with a statistically valid number of samples would not be possible.
The contact with the Tirol Information Technology Group led to a joint project with the Institute of Informatics at the University of Innsbruck, to develop new test procedures. As part of a Master’s Degree, sponsored by the FFG (Society for the Furthering of Research), an automated test process was developed. The project was led by AV‐Comparatives and automates the procedure of opening infected web pages and checking whether the PC’s antivirus software can protect it against the threat. This process is logged in minute detail. It would be impossible to conduct this test manually on the required scale.
The Real World Protection Test framework was recognized by the “Standortagentur Tirol” with the 2012 Cluster Award for innovation in computer science.
SALSA: Living Safety and Security Cases for Cyber-Physical Systems Certification
Project Description
Safety cases are an established method within certification processes of embedded systems. They trace safety goals down to safety solutions, providing evidence for the fulfilment of a system´s safety properties. However, safety cases do not scale up to cyber-physical systems like platforms for autonomous driving or smart energy management due to the lacking support of security-specific aspects or of system changes. Within SALSA, our goal is to develop a novel tool-supported method of “living” safety and security cases enabling efficient compliance management in settings characterized by heterogeneity, cross-organizational structures, certification with respect to multiple standards and short release cycles. Core concepts within SALSA are a workflow-enhanced knowledge base supporting collaborative maintenance of safety/security evidence chains, coordination of tasks in multi-standard contexts and efficient handling of system releases.
Funding
SALSA has received funding from the Austrian Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology under the funding program “IKT der Zukunft”, grant agreement n° 855383.