Antivirus and Security White Papers

ESET Conference Papers	File Size	Download
"From Fun to Profit" by Andrew Lee and Pierre-Marc Bureau Presents an overview of the evolution of malicious software, focusing on the objectives of this type of program to provide evidence for their predictions as to how it will evolve in the years to come. (Infosec Paris 2007)	2.45 (MB)
"Microsoft anti-virus — extortion, expedience or the extinction of the AV industry?" by Randy Abrams Looks at the changes in the corporate culture at Microsoft and the company's re-entry into the anti-malware market. Will it reduce diversity of choice, and will it leave users in any better shape than MSAV did in the 1990s? First published in Virus Bulletin Conference 2006 proceedings.*	0.81 (MB)
"Phish Phodder: Is User Education Helping or Hindering" by David Harley and Andrew Lee Evaluates research on susceptibility to phishing attacks, and looks at web-based educational resources such as phishing quizzes. Do phished institutions and security vendors promote a culture of dependence that discourages computer users from helping themselves? First published in 2007 Virus Bulletin Conference Proceedings.*	0.50 (MB)
"Testing, testing: Anti-Malware Evaluation for the Enterprise" by David Harley and Andrew Lee Looks at appropriate and inappropriate ways of testing anti-malware products. (AVAR Conference 2007)	0.56 (MB)

Reprints of Articles by ESET Researchers	File Size	Download
"Fixing the virus problem?" by Andrew Lee Takes a realistic look at how far Vista can be expected to mitigate the user's exposure to malicious code. Originally published in Virus Bulletin, July 2006.*	0.19 (MB)
"Phish Fingering" by David Harley Review of "Phishing Exposed", Lance James's book for Syngress. Originally published in Virus Bulletin, July 2006.*	0.48 (MB)
"War of the Words" by David Harley Reviews of Robert Slade's "Dictionary of Information Security" and "Combating Spyware in the Enterprise", by Baskin et al., both published by Syngress. Originally published in Virus Bulletin, September 2006.*	0.23 (MB)
"Yet Another Rustock Analysis.." by Lukasz Kwiatek and Stanislaw Litawa A detailed analysis of the Rustock.C rootkit and some of its self-defensive measures. Originally published in Virus Bulletin, August 2008.*	0.15 (MB)

ESET White Papers	File Size	Download
"A Pretty Kettle of Phish" by David Harley and Andrew Lee Understand and avoid the attentions of phishers and other Internet scammers.	3.04 (MB)
"Common Hoaxes and Chain Letters" by David Harley An ongoing series of papers that describe some of the commonly-found lies and half-truths that continue to circulate on the Internet, and discuss some ways of identifying them.	0.69 (MB)
"ESET Heuristic Analysis Report - March 2007" by David Harley & Andrew Lee A detailed analysis of the differences between traditional threat-specific detection and proactive detection by generic detection and behavior analysis.	1.10 (MB)
"ESET Smart Security" by ESET Research Department A detailed overview of ESET's flagship security package by the team that brings you the ESET series of product-independent threat analyses.	1.70 (MB)
"Net of the Living Dead: Bots, Botnets and Zombies" by David Harley and Andrew Lee Describes the botnet phenomenon in detail: its origins and history, current trends, and what you need to do about it.	1.93 (MB)
"The root of all evil? - Rootkits revealed" by David Harley and Andrew Lee This paper describes and de-mythologizes the rootkit problem, a serious but manageable threat.	0.83 (MB)
"The Spam-ish Inquisition" by David Harley and Andrew Lee A detailed overview of spam, scams and related nuisances, and some of the ways of dealing with them.	2.58 (MB)

Other White Papers	File Size	Download
"Beyond Signature-Based Antivirus: New Threat Vectors Drive Need for Proactive Antimalware Protection" by Brian E. Burke adapted from Worldwide Antivirus 2006-2010 Forecast Update and 2005 Vendor Analysis	0.14 (MB)

Independent Tests	File Size	Download
"Anti-Spyware Solutions Technology Report" by West Coast Labs	0.27 (MB)
"Anti-Virus Comparative Summary Report 2007" by Andreas Clementi (AV-Comparatives.org)	0.19 (MB)
"Retrospective/Proactive Test (May 2008)" by by AV-Comparatives	0.51 (MB)
"Virus Bulletin 2004-2005 Comparative Tests" by Virus Bulletin	0.49 (MB)
"Virus Bulletin 2005-2006 Comparative Tests" by Virus Bulletin	0.13 (MB)
"Windows XP Product Comparative Tests" by Virus Bulletin June 2006	0.18 (MB)

NOTE: The most recent figures from AV-Test are available on the Virus Bulletin web site.

A summary of past test results for all av vendors can be found here — this requires (free) registration with the site. Full details of individual tests, as reported in Virus Bulletin magazine, are available only to subscribers.

Past AV-Comparative test reports are archived at av-comparatives.org, along with information on report updates, testing methodology and FAQs