Anilrgowda

A test conducted by Virus Bulletin security certification body on anti-virus products using the 64-bit Microsoft Vista version finds that 30% of the popular anti-virus programs generate false positive results which could harm computer systems and files. “A false positive can cause as much disruption as a virus infection. False warnings often lead end-users to delete valid files in the belief that they are some form of attack and the resultant damage can be significant,” John Hawes, technical consultant at Virus Bulletin told Contructor.
The anti-virus products that generate false positive results include 3 anti-virus products from Trend Micro which falsely identified a Microsoft development tool as spyware, the Fortinet’s FortiClient, Ikarus Utilities, and VirusBuster.
The high percentage of false positive results suggest that anti-malware developers for the 64-bit version of Windows Vista are struggling to properly protect the operating system mainly because of the implementation of Patch Guard technology by Microsoft.
Prior to the release of Vista much debate raged over the implementation of Patch Guard as it requires a new way of developing security software products since it prevents the applications from accessing the operating system’s kernel.
However, some major anti-virus products managed to pass the test. This includes McAfee Virusscan, Symantec Antivirus and Microsoft’s Forefront.