As 2024 comes to a close, it’s the perfect moment to reflect on a strong year of growth, collaboration, and milestones for AMTSO. This year has been one of progress and transformation, laying a solid foundation for continued success in 2025. From welcoming new leaders and members to advancing critical initiatives, we are proud of what we’ve achieved together as a community.
AMTSO Members & People
In 2024, our community experienced significant changes, celebrating new beginnings and honoring longstanding contributions. In September, we welcomed Vlad Iliushin as our new President and CEO, ushering in an exciting new era for AMTSO. At the same time, we honored Dennis Batchelder, who stepped down as President and CEO, for his years of exceptional leadership and dedication to our mission. We recognized Dennis with the “Outstanding Contribution to AMTSO 2024” award, created to celebrate individuals who have made a lasting impact on our community.
This year also brought fresh perspectives to our board. In July, we were delighted to welcome Stefan Dumitrascu of SE Labs and Jamz Yaneza on our AMTSO board of directors, while extending heartfelt thanks to our outgoing board members, Glaucia Young of Microsoft and Simon Edwards of SE Labs. Their years of invaluable service have left a lasting legacy.
On the membership front, we were thrilled to welcome several new members, including Fortect, Gen, GlassWall, Grass, Karma-X, Malwation, Nord Security, Siyano Labs, and VMRay. These organizations bring fresh energy to our mission, and we’re excited about their contributions to the AMTSO community.
Output of our Working Groups
Our working groups have been at the heart of our efforts to advance cybersecurity standards and collaboration in 2024. This year, the Real Time Threat List (RTTL), Sandbox Evaluation, VPN Testing, and XDR Testing working groups drove forward discussions and delivered tangible results.
Throughout the year, we had 15 active contributors for our RTTL, which provides a source of high-quality, prevalent, real-world samples, mainly intended for testing purposes but also an invaluable resource for cybersecurity vendors. Overall in 2024, about 1.3 million samples were contributed by member security vendors, CERTs, and individual researchers, and six test labs downloaded samples from the RTTL system. As a key contributor, Varist has earned this year’s “RTTL Contributor of the Year” award for rapidly ramping up their contributions since joining in mid-2023. RTTL also serves as a single point of contact for CERTs and other bodies to share new threats they uncover with the wider security industry.
In October, we released the first draft of the Sandbox Evaluation Framework available for public review, which aims to provide a structured approach to evaluating sandboxes and similar technologies on a matrix of major factors. The VPN Testing working group made remarkable progress as well, delivering its first draft of VPN Testing Guidelines in just six months. This document, now available for public review, focuses on core VPN features, with plans to expand into additional security features in future iterations.
Meetings & Events
2024 yet again brought our community together both virtually and in person. In September and early October, we held our in-person member meeting in Dublin, where people heard for the first time from Vlad Iliushin as our new CEO. We had presentations and discussions covering our VPN and Sandbox projects, several talks and much debate on XDR, updates on our RTTL and ThreatList sample-sharing initiatives, and much more, including a look at anti-phishing testing, an area we plan to develop guidance on in 2025.
We also hosted three Testing Town Halls, featuring insightful presentations from Google, SE Labs, Venak Security, and SecureIQLab. These events fostered valuable discussions and shared knowledge across our community.
Cybersecurity Tests & Certifications
Our commitment to supporting trustworthy cybersecurity testing remained a core focus this year. In 2024, we issued 54 AMTSO Compliance Confirmation Reports, covering more than 150 enterprise, SMB, and consumer products. Additionally, we tracked 145 cybersecurity tests on the AMTSO website, reinforcing our role as a central hub for testing activity in the industry.
Looking Ahead
As we reflect on the accomplishments of 2024, we are energized by the possibilities ahead. Together, we’ve achieved much, driving forward fair cybersecurity testing in the industry. The groundwork we’ve laid promises even greater things in 2025, including the next in-person AMTSO event – make sure to subscribe here to be the first to hear about it.
Thank you to all our members, and contributors, for your great dedication to our mission.
Here’s to another year of innovation, collaboration, and success. We wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year!
