The "Real world" anti-trojan tools comparison

July 4, 2002

In our previous comparison we have offered all selected programs to check 1390 files from our trojan horses database. But there were some claims that was a "laboratory" kind of examination as some of those trojans were not prevalent and thus the results of the test did not reflect the real status of each product.

So now to determine the real detection rate of each product we downloaded 256 trojans from a security related web-site. This trojans directory is available for free to any visitor of the web-site what makes those trojans "real thing". We scanned those 256 trojans with selected tools to see how well each product protects its users. Availability of those trojan horses to crackers and therefore the severe threat of infection makes this examination a real reflection of detection rate offered by those tools.

Selected tools
We have selected and downloaded 4 antiviruses and 10 leading anti-trojan products for our test.

Anti-Viruses

	Software		Version	Manufacturer	Signatures
	Dr Web		4.28a	SalD	30/06/2002
	Kaspersky Antivirus		4.0	Kaspersky Labs	01/07/2002
	NOD32		1.273	Eset Software	02/07/2002
	Norton Antivirus		8.05	Symantec	26/06/2002

Anti-Trojans

	Software		Version	Manufacturer	Signatures
	The Cleaner		3.2.3241	Moosoft Development	28/06/2002
	TDS		3.2.0	Diamond Computer Systems PTY Ltd	02/07/2002
	Tauscan		1.6	Agnitum Ltd.	27/06/2002
	PestPatrol		3.2	PestPatrol	18/06/2002
	PC DoorGuard		2.16.0.0	Astonsoft Co.	02/07/2002
	Digital Patrol		3.2f	DigitalPatrol	01/07/2002
	TrojanHunter		2.54.604	Mischel Internet Security	27/06/2002
	TrojanRemover		4.7.3	Simply Super Software	01/07/2002
	AntiTrojan		5.5.379	Anti-Trojan Network	29/06/2002
	Antiy Ghostbusters		3.30	Antiy Labs	01/07/2002

AntiTrojan Tools Introduction
We won't consider in this review personal firewall software, as this class of programs is not able to locate and remove the Trojans from the infected computers. However, firewalls are able to block Trojan's network activity and therefore make the Trojan horse ineffective, but most users find it very difficult to properly configure firewall rules to make it effective of blocking Trojans horses. There is also a risk that rookie users may occasionally set their firewall to allow Trojan communication. As for Trojans, firewalls should be considered as valuable addition to anti-trojan tools that are able to discover a Trojan on infected machine and then remove it. These tools are so called Anti-trojan software (or just Anti-trojans) and Anti-viruses.

The main difference between AniTrojans and AntiViruses is that AntiViruses give higher priority to detection of the common viruses and only the rest is given to Trojans. Most AntiViruses do not specialize in Trojan horses. Databases used by anti-virus software contain only the most widespread Trojans.

On the other hand, AntiTrojans use the same principles as anti-virus software specializing in locating and removing of Trojans only. The makers of anti-Trojan software specialize in the research of Trojans and in detecting, recognizing, nullifying and removing Trojans from all types of computers and networks. The main drawback of AnitTrojans is that all AntiTrojans are inefficient in combating other types of viruses.

Unfortunately, users are left to choose between these separate products or purchase both of them. We have tested the best AntiVirus and AntiTrojan products to learn what is the best solution to protect your computer from Trojan horses.

continue to:
"AntiTrojan Tools Overview"
"Comparison results"