OREANDA-NEWS. Kaspersky Lab’s Dynamic Whitelist technology has received the “Approved Whitelisting Service” certificate following independent testing by the AV-TEST research lab. Integrated into a number of the company’s security solutions, the technology is designed to protect computers with the help of a database of trusted software.

Kaspersky Lab is the first vendor to receive the certificate from independent test Lab. The experts at AV-TEST recognized the solution’s high level of reliability and efficiency.

AV-TEST invited a number of companies developing comprehensive security products and specialized Whitelist solutions to take part in the testing. However, Kaspersky Lab was the only company which agreed to participate.

The advantages of the Whitelist approach

Over 200,000 new samples of malicious software appear daily on the Internet. In these circumstances, it is easier and more efficient to ensure the computer's security by relying on a database of checked and "clean" programs rather than continually replenishing blacklists of malicious software. It’s clear that there will always be far more malicious programs than legitimate ones. However, the reliability of Whitelisting depends on the quality of its implementation: the extent of its database of known files, operating speed and other important parameters.

During testing conducted between November 2012 and February 2013, Kaspersky Lab’s Whitelisting technology was exposed to five groups of tests in order to determine how well the technology could solve different tasks. The evaluated parameters included Database Coverage, Quality, Speed, False Rate and the quality of Default Deny mode operation.

The AV-TEST experts used their own database of about 20 million files included in popular software. In order to make the test conditions as close as possible to those in the real world, software was loaded both from vendor sites and third-party resources via which outdated or modified versions of the programs could be distributed.

Kaspersky Lab's solution showed impressive results in all five tests. In a key finding, it was confirmed that Kaspersky Lab's Dynamic Whitelist database contains 97.5% of all software related to the corporate sector and 96% of software files utilized by home users. In addition, the solution demonstrated "knowledge" of all important Windows 8 files. This means that beside previous Windows versions Default Deny mode is also supported for Windows 8. The system did not produce a single false positive, with all clean files and applications being identified correctly.

“Although protecting computers by using software whitelists has long been recognized by experts as a reliable and promising method, the implementation of the Whitelisting approach may differ from vendor to vendor,” said Vladimir Zapolyansky, Director of Global Product and Technology Intelligence at Kaspersky Lab. "In this respect we are pleased to receive this AV-TEST certificate because it means the reliability and efficiency of our solution is now confirmed by independent experts. This evaluation is a good recommendation for clients considering what is on the market."

Kaspersky Lab’s Dynamic Whitelist database contains over 700 million unique files. This database is constantly updated by the company and by more than 300 partner software vendors.

This is not the first time the effectiveness of Kaspersky Lab’s Whitelisting technology has been confirmed by expert analysis. In 2011, the independent testing laboratory West Coast Labs awarded Kaspersky Lab a Platinum Product Award based on the results of its testing.

Whitelisting technology is integrated into the home user products Kaspersky Anti-Virus and Kaspersky Internet Security. It is also available in the Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business solution designed to protect corporate workstations.