Polymorphic malicious programs (also referred to hereafter as viruses) are capable of completely mutating with every new infection, generating multiple samples of themselves.

When scanning files on a computer using the traditional method, antivirus products search for specific traces of a virus – a signature. If the code of a virus that has been assigned a signature is modified, it will no longer be possible to detect it using that signature. A polymorphic virus is capable of performing such modifications to any of its parts.

As a rule, detecting polymorphic viruses makes use of a detection algorithm that is specially developed for each individual virus. The aim of this test is to assess the quality of the special algorithm function in various antivirus products.

Moreover, because polymorphic viruses are the most difficult viruses to detect, the ability to do so reflects the level of professionalism of an antivirus product’s developers. They not only have to analyze the complex variants of the viruses but also develop a reliable procedure and methodology to ensure 100% detection rates.

• Methodology used in testing of polymorphic virus detection »
• Composition of polymorphic virus samples for antivirus detection testing »
• Analysis of testing results and awards»

Latest test results (28/02/2008)

Award	Products
Download GIF image (500х500px)	Avira Antivir Personal Edition Classic 7.06 (31 out of 33 points) F-Secure Anti-Virus 2008 (31 out of 33) Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0 (31 out of 33)
Download GIF image (500х500px)	Avast Professional Edition 4.7 (25 out of 33) AVG Anti-Virus Professional Edition 7.5 (22 out of 33) DrWeb 4.44 (21 out of 33) ESET Nod32 Antivirus 3.0 (20 out of 33)
Download GIF image (500х500px)	Microsoft Windows Live OneCare 2.0 Pre-Release (19 out of 33) Trend Micro Antivirus plus Antispyware 2008 (18 out of 33) Symantec Anti-Virus 2008 (17 out of 33) BitDefender Anti-Virus 2008 (16 out of 33) Agnitum Outpost Security Suite Pro 2008 (15 out of 33) Sophos Anti-Virus 7.0 (14 out of 33) Panda Antivirus 2008 (14 out of 33) VBA32 Workstation 3.12.6 (14 out of 33)
Failed	McAfee VirusScan 2008 (11 out of 33)

 Key results from the testing of antivirus software for the detection of polymorphic viruse in HTML»

Complete results for each antivirus product are available only in HTML (click on the link above).