Welcome to our regular roundup of events and activities in and around AMTSO.
Meetings and Events
The guest list for our reception event in San Francisco on April 29th is filling up fast, any members interested in attending are advised to sign up ASAP to ensure their place at the event. Our panel discussion will include special guests Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Sam Curry, Global VP and CISO in Residence at Zscaler – more speakers will be announced as they are confirmed.
Before then we plan to hold another Testing Town Hall online event in March, schedule and speakers to be announced shortly.
Working Groups
Our VPN working group’s first guideline paper, on testing the performance and core features of VPN solutions, was formally adopted and published on February 19th. The group’s plan to move on to focusing on additional privacy and security features has expanded considerably to look at web threat protections more generally; the group will be retitled and will invite expertise from across membership to address these issues.
Our Sandbox framework project has also finalized its first paper, which is now beginning the formal adoption process, with completion expected by the end of March assuming no further change requests are received from AMTSO members. The framework draft has been expanded and enhanced since the public review version was circulated at the end of last year, but retains the same overall direction and scope.
The XDR Working Group is also at the final stages of publishing our XDR product comparison data, with final feedback from vendors being gathered and initial publication expected next week. The project will maintain the data as new products are added and those tracked evolve, and will move on to focus again on the testing side of the equation, with similar comparison data for tests planned.
AMTSO Standard and Test Calendar
Tests recently added to our test calendar include the latest results from Virus Bulletin’s VB100 certification, the January update from AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation, and Android tests from Testing Ground Labs. Coming up soon we expect to see the final 2024 reports from MRG Effitas, and the first of 2025 from AppEsteem’s UwS tests.
- Phase 2 Commentary Collection was completed for the Testing Ground Labs (TGL) December 2024 Consumer Android Malware Detection Test Report (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP135) and December 2024 Enterprise Android Malware Detection Test Report (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP136). Compliance Confirmation Reports were issued for both programs on Monday, February 17th, 2025.
- A revised Public Test Notification was issued for the Virus Bulletin VB100 2025 Test Series (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP134) on Tuesday, February 18th, 2025. This edition reflects an upcoming update to the VB testing methodology. Tracking of participants for the next Phase 2 Commentary Collection period continues.
- A Public Test Notification was issued for the TGL (Testing Ground Labs) February 2025 Consumer Android Malware Detection Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP141) on Wednesday, February 26th, 2025. Phase 1 Commentary is now available for this test.
Information on all published and upcoming tests being tracked by AMTSO can be found in our test calendar.
Board and management
The February meeting of the Board was enhanced by members of our Advisory Board, providing their insights into ongoing and upcoming projects and plans.
Our annual Board elections are approaching, with the timeline approved during the BoD call. Candidate nominations are now open for the four positions up for election (two by tester members and two by non-tester members), and the deadline for nominations has been set to April 21st (12 noon Pacific time). Voting will open on May 8th and close on June 2nd (12 noon Pacific time). The new Board will take up their positions at the start of our next company year on July 1st.
Finance and membership
Preparations are under way for our annual renewal round, with membership renewal invoices due out at the start of May.
We expect to welcome a new tester member to the organization in the next few weeks – anyone interested in joining AMTSO and participating in our various projects can find more information here.
ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER
We send this newsletter to all AMTSO member representatives, as well as non-members who have engaged with AMTSO recently and have an interest in what’s going on in the AMTSO community. If you have any friends or colleagues who would like to be kept informed of developments in the testing world, they can sign up here. If you’d like to know more about joining the AMTSO community, there’s information and an application form here.