Mobile Security Review September 2014
Release date | 2014-09-30 |
Revision date | 2014-09-29 |
Test Period | September 2014 |
Number of Testcases | 3991 |
Online with cloud connectivity | |
Update allowed | |
False Alarm Test included | |
Platform/OS | Android Mobile |
Introduction
Smartphones represent the future of modern communications. In 2013, more than 1 billion smartphones were sold, a further milestone in the advance of these devices. A study published by Facebook emphasises the importance of smartphones in our lives; about 80% of users make use of their smartphone within 15 minutes of waking up each day.
At the same time, the traditional function of a telephone is becoming less and less important. The high quality of integrated cameras means that the smartphone is increasingly used for photography. As well as with photos, users trust their devices with their most personal communications, such as Facebook, WhatsApp and email. This brings some risks with it, as such usage makes the smartphone interesting for criminals, who attempt to infect the device with malware or steal personal data. There is also the danger brought by phishing attacks.
The products that participated in this year’s test are listed below. The manufacturers either provided us with the latest version of their product, or confirmed that it was available from the Google Play Store at the time of the test (July 2014). After the test, manufacturers had the opportunity to fix any flaws we found. Any problems that have already been solved are noted in the report.
Tested Products
- IKARUS mobile.security 1.7.20
- Kingsoft Mobile Security 3.3.1
Test Procedure
The security products were updated and tested on the 11th July 2014. The result reached by Qihoo in this test is not applicable to the English product version available in the Google playstore, which is different to the version that Qihoo provides in Chinese and English on their website. Therefore the results of Qihoo are not shown here.
The test was conducted with an active Internet connection on genuine Android smartphones (no emulators were used). The test set consisted exclusively of .APK files. An on-demand scan was conducted first. After this, every undetected app was installed manually. We did this to allow the products to detect the malware using real-time protection.
Testcases
We collected the malware samples used in the test during the period of few months leading up to the test. 3991 malicious applications were used to create a representative test set. So-called “potentially unwanted apps” were not used in the test.
We additionally conducted a false-positive test using the top 100 ad-free programs from the Google Play Store. None of the products tested produced any false positives with these apps.
Test Results
The chart below shows, that the protection rates against real Android malware are very high. This might be due to the increasingly aggressive detection by app reputation for apps that are not on Google Play, but maybe also because many of the participants in our test are leading mobile security vendors with good protection rates.
Award levels reached in this Mobile Security Review
AhnLab | APPROVED |
Avast | APPROVED |
Avira | APPROVED |
Baidu | APPROVED |
Bitdefender | APPROVED |
Cheetah Mobile Clean Master | APPROVED |
Cheetah Mobile CM Security | APPROVED |
ESET | APPROVED |
F-Secure | APPROVED |
G DATA | APPROVED |
Ikarus | APPROVED |
Kaspersky | APPROVED |
Kingsoft | APPROVED |
McAfee | APPROVED |
Quick Heal | APPROVED |
Sophos | APPROVED |
Trend Micro | APPROVED |
Webroot | APPROVED |
Notes
The mobile products of Baidu, Kingsoft and Tencent are currently only available as Chinese-language versions. The result reached by Qihoo in this test is not applicable to the English product version available in the Google playstore, which is different to the version that Qihoo provides in Chinese and English on their website. Therefore the results of Qihoo are not shown here.
Copyright and Disclaimer
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AV-Comparatives
(September 2014)