Welcome to our regular roundup of events and activities in and around AMTSO, returning after a short summer break.
Meetings and Events
Our member meeting in Dublin is only a month away, the event will start on September 30th with a members day featuring review and discussion of our latest guidance papers, with near-final drafts covering sandbox evaluation and VPN testing set to be brought before the members for further feedback and input prior to being put forward for formal member votes to adopt. The second day, October 1st, will include a first look at data being gathered by our XDR testing project and discussion of the next steps of evolving definite criteria and standards for such testing, as well as panels and presentations from guest speakers. We expect to issue updates to the agenda to members next week.
Further ahead we have another Testing Town Hall event in November, work is under way to line up speakers and we plan to put out an initial agenda after the Dublin events.
XDR Working Group
Despite several of the team being on vacation our XDR working group held a call in mid-August to keep track of progress with our data-gathering project, harvesting details of the composition of XDR solutions from multiple vendors. Outreach to non-members to complete their data continues, as do efforts to dig up the required information from public sources where solution providers have yet to provide their responses directly.
Sandbox Evaluation Working Group
We continue to reach out to members and non-members active in the sandbox space to finalise feedback on our sandbox evaluation draft. Final review will be held at the Dublin meeting with the paper’s lead author Jan Miller of OPSWAT.
VPN Working Group
A meeting of the VPN team was held this week for a first look at an initial draft of guidance driven by VPN experts at Nord Security. The working group will review and comment on the draft over the next few weeks and hopes to produce an updated draft ready for review by the wider membership at the Dublin meeting.
RTTL Working Group
Our RTTL group continued to meet on its regular schedule through the summer slowdown, keeping tabs on the system and the flow of samples and metadata. Current projects include a clean-up of old data including a purge of accounts for inactive contributors.
AMTSO Standard and Test Calendar
New tests added to our Test Calendar in recent weeks include Q2 updates from MRG Effitas on both Windows and Android, released this week, alongside regular updates from AV-Test, AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation, Virus Bulletin’s VB100, AppEsteem’s Unwanted Software test, and Testing Ground Lab’s Android testing. We also added a new test on protection against scams in AV-Comparatives’ “Fake Shops” test. Here’s a summary of recent activities from our Standard compliance team:
- AMTSO Compliance Confirmation Report covering the Testing Ground Labs Consumer Android test (AMTSO-LS1-TP120) was issued on August 13th, 2024.
- AMTSO Compliance Confirmation Reports covering the AV-Test Windows tests for May/June 2024 for Consumer and Business products (AMTSO-LS1-TP106 and AMTSO-LS1-TP107) were issued on August 13th, 2024.
- AMTSO Compliance Confirmation Reports covering the AV-Test MacOS tests for May/June 2024 for Consumer and Business products (AMTSO-LS1-TP104 and AMTSO-LS1-TP105) were issued on August 16th, 2024.
- AMTSO Compliance Confirmation Report covering the AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation Advanced In-the-Wild Malware Test July 2024 (AMTSO-LS1-TP121) was issued on August 20th, 2024.
- Phase 2 Commentary Collection covering the MRG Effitas Q2 2024 360 Degree and Android Tests (AMTSO-LS1-TP118 and AMTSO-LS1-TP117) will launch shortly.
Information on all published and upcoming tests being tracked by AMTSO can be found in our test calendar.
Finances and Membership
We welcome our newest member, Grass.
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