NSS Labs recently released the first in a series of lab tests to examine how much protection various anti-malware products provide. Their 'Live Testing' methodology claims to measure anti-malware performance in a real world environment. They test anti-malware the way an end user would use anti-malware and do not test against "stale samples" in a lab. Finally, their tests do not receive any funding from the anti-malware vendors whose products are involved in these tests.

When you combine malware that was caught (and blocked) while it was being downloaded with malware that was caught (and blocked) when it tried to run, Trend Micro's product finished in first place. It blocked an impressive 96.4% of all threats encountered over the 17 day testing regiment. ESET's offering finished last (of nine products) and only blocked 67.9% of all threats. The other vendors finished somewhere in between these two extremes.

Most troubling though is how these products fared against '0-hour' threats. According to NSS Lab's blog, proactive 0-hour protection ranged from 29% to 64%. While I could not find those numbers in the consumer version of the report (which is free), I suspect that they will be explained in the corporate version. Assuming these numbers were collected and reported in a satisfactory way, it means that, with many new threats being reported every day, even the best protected people out there are falling victim to brand new threats.

Check out NSS Lab's blog - you can get a list of all the products tested, plus find a link to download the Group Test of corporate and consumer endpoint protection products. The consumer level report is free to registered users.