AV-Comparatives’ Security Summit and Award Ceremony 2024 recognised paramount cybersecurity solutions for enterprises and consumers.

The landmark tenth annual AV-Comparatives’ Security Summit recently concluded in Innsbruck, with a strong international presence of more than 50 IT security professionals hailing from 15 different nations. This assembly, renowned for its insightful content and participation, has successfully facilitated a platform for recognising exceptional performance based on the rigorous testing protocols conducted in the AV-Comparatives laboratories throughout 2023.

In an exceptional display of summit integration and local culture, the AV-Comparatives’ Security Summit participants ascended to 250 metres height on the Bergisel Ski Jump. Safeguarded by comprehensive security measures and expert guidance, they enjoyed an exclusive panorama of Innsbruck, demonstrating the summit’s innovative approach to fostering a memorable and engaging professional community.

Load with adrenaline form the first day, the second day of the Security Summit began with a series of intense 1:1 interactions between analysts and journalists. These were followed by a round table discussion led by AV-Comparatives’ Founder and CEO, Andreas Clementi, and RedTeam-Leader Daniel Feichter. They addressed the most current security challenges, illustrating developments in crucial areas like Process-Injection, LSASS Protection, NGFW testing, Endpoint Prevention & Response, and Advanced Threat Protection tests.

Following this, co-founder Peter Stelzhammer introduced this year’s themes, marking the start of deep-dives into the premier topics in today’s cybersecurity landscape.

• Associated University of Applied Sciences Professor and PhD Software Engineering Senior Researcher Matthias Janetschek from the Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) presented insights “On the influence of white labelling for IoT security”.
• Eddy Willems (WAVCi) and Senior Research Fellow Righard Zwienenberg from ESET held one of their storytelling sessions on the theme “Let’s Chat about Gross Public Text generation.”
• Security Delivery Senior Manager Andreas Kirchebner from Accenture and Principal Systems Engineer SAP Security Julian Peterson from Fortinet presented the whole and complex story around “SAP and the need of IT Security Infrastructure.”
• Chairman and CEO Eugene Kaspersky from Kaspersky presented a view into future security with his winner-talk about “Cyber immunity for the cyber age.”

The summit attendees benefited significantly from the panel discussion titled “Guarding the Frontline: Unveiling the crucial role of IT security vendors in the battle against cyberwarfare“. This insightful session deepened the understanding of how IT security vendors form the first line of defence in the tussle against evolving cyber threats.

In addition to this year’s talks, trophies were awarded to vendors to recognise their achievements for their consumer and business product awards by the team of AV-Comparatives.

Awards

For the top-performing security products tested during 2023, AV-Comparatives Approved Product Awards were given out for qualifying consumer and business products, as well as awards for the Consumer Main-Test Series, which included both individual tests and cumulative results. Amongst the products tested by AV-Comparatives in 2023 were: security programs for Windows consumer devices, macOS and Android; EPP (endpoint protection) and EPR (endpoint prevention and response) products for enterprise; anti-phishing and parental control products. Overall, AV-Comparatives performed more tests than ever, to keep up with the cybercriminals.

The following vendors received awards for their products in AV-Comparatives’ tests of 2023, in alphabetical order: Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, Check Point, CISCO, CrowdStrike, Cybereason, Elastic, ESET, Fortinet, F-Secure, G Data, Intego, K7, Kaspersky, McAfee, Microsoft, Norton, Palo Alto Networks, Panda, Securion, Sophos, Total Defense, TotalAV, Trellix, Trend Micro, VIPRE, VMware and WatchGuard.

Product of the Year Award

Kaspersky received the AV-Comparatives “Product of the Year” award 2023 (1st place overall), reaching top scores throughout the year. The award is given for the highest overall results across all the tests in the Consumer Main-Test Series.

Outstanding Product Award

Bitdefender, which also achieved the highest award level in all of the Consumer Main-Test Series in 2023, took the “Outstanding Product” award.

Top-Rated Product Awards

Avast, AVG, Avira, ESET and G Data also achieved excellent results in the year’s tests, for which they were rewarded with “Top-Rated Product” awards.

Consumer / Home User Security Products

For each individual test type (Real-World Protection, Malware Protection, Advanced Threat Protection, Low False Positives, and Low System-Impact), Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards were given. The following vendors won awards in those categories: Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, ESET, G Data, K7, Kaspersky, McAfee and TotalAV.

The Approved Security Product Award was given to all products demonstrating competent performance across all the test types. The following 15 vendors reached this status: Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, ESET, F-Secure, G Data, K7, Kaspersky, McAfee, Microsoft, Norton, Panda, Total Defense and TotalAV. For further details, please see AV-Comparatives’ 2023 Consumer Summary Report.

Business and Enterprise Security Products

For enterprise products, AV-Comparatives’ Approved Business Security Award was given to vendors whose products demonstrated good levels of protection and performance across the Business Main-Test Series. These were: Avast, Bitdefender, CISCO, CrowdStrike, Cybereason, Elastic, ESET, G Data, K7, Kaspersky, Microsoft, Sophos, Trellix, VIPRE, VMware and WatchGuard. For further details, please see the report of AV-Comparatives’ Business Security Test report.

The award ceremony concluded with a guided sightseeing tour along the Emperor’s Path, followed by a visit to the preserved buildings of Innsbruck’s charming old town. Austrian cuisine served in healthy pine-panelled rooms provided the energy for the program at the traditional restaurants “Bierstindl” and “Hotel Innsbruck”.

Message from the CEO

AV-Comparatives’ founder and CEO Andreas Clementi commented: “We extend our gratitude to all attendees of the Innsbruck event for contributing to its remarkable success. Congratulations to the security vendors whose products performed well in our tough, real-world tests. Given the escalating tide of cybercrime, the significance of robust security solutions cannot be overstated. We extend our commendations to the security providers whose products demonstrated resilience under stringent independent evaluations mirroring real-life circumstances.”

Editors, media professionals, bloggers, and others are welcome to utilise the results of all tests at no cost.

Photos by © Christian Forcher / AV-Comparatives