Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management solutions that protect against viruses, hacker attacks and spam, announces yet another certification for the Kaspersky® Anti-Virus product line. The popular version 5.0, the latest generation of Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal, successfully passed certification tests carried out on Microsoft Windows XP platform by the international research center West Coast Labs in the Spyware protection category, and now holds the Spyware Checkmark certificate.
Checkmark is a system which tests and certifies security products to real-world standards through a quality testing and certification service that uses independent standards to check product effectiveness. Checkmark is owned by West Coast Labs in the UK and works closely with global leaders in the information technology sector and with user groups.
The appearance of spyware as a new test category by Checkmark emerged as spyware gained recognition in the international computer community as an individual class of malware. At present, spyware is considered a distinct type of potentially hostile programs, including those that steal information about computers and users. Spyware also includes several types of hostile and unwanted programs, including Trojans, backdoors and riskware.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus has received Checkmark certification since 1998, when Kaspersky Lab presented Kaspersky Anti-Virus version 3.0 for testing. The Kaspersky Lab products registered in the Checkmark certification system have consistently achieved high results throughout this period.
In order to receive the Spyware Checkmark certification, an antivirus product must comply with a number of criteria. The product must effectively block spyware from the West Coast Labs test suite, which consists of samples of spyware programs that exists in the real world. Furthermore, the product should not generate false positives or other errors caused by faulty detection.
The fifth generation Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal passed the West Coast Labs tests to gain full certification for content security for Windows XP. It provides an opportunity to mark the product and all related marketing materials with the Spyware Checkmark logo.
