Email Phishing and Malware | Bitdefender Earns Top Marks in VBSpam Test

Bitdefender has once again earned the top ranking for email phishing, malware and spam removal from the premiere online publication for anti-virus information and resources, Virus Bulletin. Virus Bulletin regularly features analyses of the latest virus threats, articles exploring new developments in the fight against viruses, interviews with anti-virus experts, and evaluations of current anti-malware products.

What is phishing?

According to a NextGov survey, 73% of organizations have suffered data breaches caused by phishing attacks in the past calendar year. Phishing is an online scam where threat actors impersonate actual organizations via email, text message, advertisement, or other means to steal sensitive information. This is usually done through a link that will appear to take you to a company’s website to fill in your information – but the website is a false reproduction and the information provided goes straight to the thieves behind the scam.

Phishing is a take on the word fishing. Cyber criminals will entice users with “bait” (the copycat email, website or ad) hoping they will interact by providing information – such as credit card numbers, account numbers, passwords, usernames or other valuable information.

VBSpam phishing and malware email security test

The VBSpam test is an independent test that takes into consideration various types of spam (malspam, phishing, extortion, scam, unwanted etc.) and legitimate emails to ensure customers have a comprehensive view over the performance of the email security solutions tested.

According to the testing methodology , "Products earn VBSpam certification if the value of the final score is at least 98 and the ‘delivery speed colors’ at 10% and 50% are green or yellow, and that at 95% is green, yellow or orange.” Meanwhile, products that combine a spam catch rate of 99.5% or higher with a lack of false positives (no more than 2.5% false positives among newsletters) and ‘delivery speed colors’ of green at 10% and 50% and green or yellow at 95% and 98%, earn a VBSpam+ award.

VBSpam+ is the highest certification granted by this publication and this is the 28^th consecutive test that Bitdefender has earned this recognition. The public tests by Virus Bulletin, a world leader in analysis of security software, included six full email security solutions, one custom configured solution and four blacklists of various kinds. The latest tests, besides judging the effectiveness of the product against spam, focused on emails that, through attachments or URLs, lead directly to a malicious action.

“Bitdefender has been participating in Virus Bulletin's VBSpam testing program since its outset in 2009 and has achieved a pass in every published test it has taken part in. The September 2021 VBSpam test report saw Bitdefender ranked first when compared by the Final Score (a position that has held for the last five most recent tests) and continues their solid performance with a 28th consecutive VBSpam+ award, which is the highest-level certification in the program, thus reflecting the product's ability to correctly block malicious and phishing emails combined with a quick response when filtering legitimate emails."[1]

Test results from VBSpam

Bitdefender Security for Mail Servers 3.1.7 scored a spam catch rate of 99.94% with 0 false positives and 0 newsletter FPs improving on its previous tests results.

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Figure 1: Results from VBSpam independent rigorous testing model

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Figure 2 - Final score from VBSpam test showcasing highest ranked product for Email Security

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Figure 3 - Quadrant showcasing spam catch rate and false positive ranking

The VBSpam Test is important to Bitdefender because it continuously proves that the antispam technology and the Bitdefender Security for Mail Servers product delivers, year after year, top email security to our customers.

Counting this award, we have reached 5 consecutive tests (last 5 quarters) in which we ranked first.
Bitdefender is the only antispam product to have achieved the VBSpam certification in all 65 Virus Bulletin Antispam Comparative Tests ever performed (since 2009).
Bitdefender also holds the record for most consecutive VBSpam+ awards (the highest VB certification: 0 FPs and very high detection rate) - 28 and counting.

How antispam technology combats phishing and malware

Email threats are continuously evolving and only a cloud-based technology that leverages a broad range of malicious email components blacklists and advanced machine learning models can successfully target the most sophisticated phishing and scam attempts.

Bitdefender’s efficient antispam technologies give technology licensing partners and customers a crucial tool to prevent targeted attacks and focus on re-inventing and adapting their business models to the new world.