AMTSO News 2024-12-13

Welcome to our regular roundup of events and activities in and around AMTSO. 

VPN Working Group – new draft paper released

Our VPN group has completed development work on their first paper, which is now being made available for wider review by AMTSO members and others with an interest in the topic – the paper and call for feedback can be found on our public site. This open review phase will run through mid-January, at which time the working group will review any comments received and action as required prior to moving the paper forward for formal adoption. The team will then move on to the next phase of their planned project, with a second paper focused on additional security features.

Sandbox Evaluation Working Group

We are in process of reviewing feedback received in the open comment period for our Sandbox testing framework, there were extensive suggestions made and work to incorporate these into the draft has already begun. A meeting of the group is being scheduled for the next few weeks with further calls expected into January, we hope to move the finalized paper forward for adoption in sync with the VPN paper. The Working Group has been expanded by several additional members, most of them recently-joined companies including VMRay, Venak Security, and Malwation.

XDR Working Group

The XDR group has begun outreach to vendors to confirm data collected on the makeup of their XDR offerings, once this process is complete we plan to publish the data in easily-consumable format.

RTTL Working Group

The RTTL team held their regular call this week to review the status of the system. A larger group call is being arranged for all participants to suggest expansions and improvements.

Meetings and Events

Work continues on plans for 2025 events, with outreach to venues under way for a potential networking event alongside the annual RSA conference. Our full member meeting will likely be later in the year, we hope to issue more details during January.

AMTSO Standard and Test Calendar

Our Test Calendar saw a number of additions as we moved into December, including the latest Windows and MacOS tests from AV-Test, and coming up before end of year we expect to see Q4 reports from SE Labs and Q3 data from MRG Effitas. Here’s a summary of recent activities from our Standard compliance team:

  • Phase 2 Commentary Collection and Compliance Reports have been completed for six different test projects over the last reporting cycle. More than 75 individual products were reviewed under these tests covering the consumer and business sectors:
    • AppEsteem July 2024 through October 2024 UwS Test Series (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP108)
    • TGL October 2024 Android Consumer Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP131)
    • AV-TEST September/October 2024 Virus Protection Test Report covering Windows for Consumer Users (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP107)
    • AV-TEST September/October 2024 Virus Protection Test Report covering Windows for Business Users (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP106)
    • AV-TEST October 2024 Virus Protection Test Report covering MacOS for Home Users (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP105)
    • AV-TEST October 2024 Virus Protection Test Report covering MacOS for Business Users (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP104) 
  • Phase 2 Commentary on the latest rounds of VB100 certification (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP095) will commence shortly.
  • All testers running Annual Test Series are reminded that December 2024 will be the last month of their existing test plan cycles. Please send us your revised 2025 Test Plans as soon as possible for circulation during December 2024.

Information on all published and upcoming tests being tracked by AMTSO can be found in our test calendar.

Board and Management

We will hold our final Board call of 2025 next week, items on the agenda include proposals to redesign our processes for adopting guideline papers, adjustments to our fees for individual members, and plans for 2025 events.

Membership

We welcome our newest member, VMRay. We also have several other new membership applications being processed and expect to welcome more new joiners in the new year. Anyone interested in joining our community and participating in our working groups can find more information on our joining page.

ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER

We send this newsletter to all AMTSO member representatives, as well as non-members who have engaged with AMTSO recently and have an interest in what’s going on in the AMTSO community. If you have any friends or colleagues who would like to be kept informed of developments in the testing world, they can sign up here. If you’d like to know more about joining the AMTSO community, there’s information and an application form here.