Welcome to our regular roundup of events and activities in and around AMTSO.
Meetings and Events
We have continued publishing highlights from our Lisbon conference last month, with most presentations now viewable via our news pages and on our YouTube channel. These include guest talks from Google and Malanta, both released this week; the last remaining highlights will be going live next week. Full versions as well as slide decks have already been shared with AMTSO members via the member site.
Our event planning team met up this week, we expect to be able to announce the dates and location for our 2026 conference at the next Testing Town Hall event – this has been pushed back to December 10th, we should be issuing invites to members and signed-up guests, and publishing the lineup of speakers, early next week. For the 2026 event, we have launched a survey of our members to gather ideas for themes and content, which members can find on the member site, and we expect to open the call for papers during December.
Working Groups
Last week we had our regular meetup of the RTTL team, reviewing a detailed draft document laying out plans for expansion and re-focusing of our threat intel sharing project as we move towards RTTL 3.0. The group also carried out the usual oversight of the current project status and feed levels, and checked in on some ongoing bug fixes and minor improvements.
Our Sandbox team also met up last week, looking into running free evaluations of public sandbox services using our testing framework. Outreach to providers for their feedback and buy-in is under way.
This week saw another meeting of our Multiscanner Validation Criteria project, working to provide guidance to multiscanning service providers on how to ensure the detection technologies they include are relevant and useful. The team looked at an initial draft of methodology proposals, as well as discussing sourcing of test-cases and frequency of evaluations. Non-member companies operating such services are being contacted for feedback and to offer a chance to meet with the project team and discuss their requirements.
We also held a call for our Scam and Phishing group this week, reviewing one member company’s approved definition of a scam, which will be rolled into AMTSO’s own formal definition as part of guidance for testing protection technologies. The group also plans outreach to a wider audience for input and feedback.
AMTSO Standard and Test Calendar
In an unusually quiet few weeks for our Test Calendar, additions in recent weeks include MacOS test results from AV-Test covering both business and consumer users, and a regular update from AppEsteem’s Unwanted Software test. Coming up soon, Q4 reports from MRG Effitas and SE Labs. Here’s a summary of recent activities from our Standard compliance team:
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the AVTEST September-October Android Consumer 2025 Test Report (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP144) was issued on Thursday, November 6th, 2025 following their five business day Phase 2 commentary period.
- Compliance Confirmation Reports covering the AVTEST September 2025 Virus Protection Test Report covering MacOS for Business Users (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP145) and September 2025 Virus Protection Test Report covering MacOS Sequoia for Home Users (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP146) were released on Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 following their Phase 2 Commentary period.
- A new Public Test Notification was issued on behalf of the SecureIQLab for their upcoming Cloud Web Application and API Protection CyberRisk Methodology v5.0 Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP169) on Tuesday, November 11th, 2025 with Phase 1 Commentary welcomed.
- Venak Security has withdrawn its Zero-Day Exploit Test (Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP165). Expect that a new test plan will be launched during Q1’26.
Information on all published and upcoming tests being tracked by AMTSO can be found in our test calendar.
Board and Management
We held our November meeting of the Board and executive team this week, high on the agenda was an update on planning for our 2026 event, as well as debate on the requirements for “Tester Member” status, which has special benefits within AMTSO. There will be another call next month to wrap up the year and look ahead to 2026.
Membership
We have a number of new member applications pre-approved pending final paperwork, and hope to be able to announce new joins in the next newsletter. Anyone interested in becoming an AMTSO member and contributing their insights to our various projects can find more information on our joining page.
ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER
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