Welcome to our regular roundup of events and activities in and around AMTSO.
Meetings and Events
We continue to work on planning for our 2026 Cyber Research Conference in Brussels in October. We hope to announce the venue information shortly, and also to publicise the first selections from the Call for Papers, which has already seen a flood of interesting submissions.
We’re also working on timing and content for the next Testing Town Hall and expect to issue invites to members and signed-up guests in the next couple of weeks – the event will include discussion of several of our ongoing projects including plans for RTTL evolution (more below).
Working Groups
Most of our Working Groups have already restarted their work after the end-of-year break.
Last week we held a call for the RTTL threat-intel sharing project team, catching up with oversight of the current system and discussing plans for expansions and improvements. Next week we will hold a special extended call with several additional interested parties invited along, to wrap up the planning and finalize a draft outlining the new features and structures to enhance the flow of samples and metadata.
This week we had a call for our multiscanning group, which is working on a process for validating security products for inclusion in multi-engine threat-identification platforms. An initial draft is being reviewed and we expect to open it for wider consultation among members, and others who might be interested in making use of the process, very soon.
We also had a meeting of our Scam & Phishing Working Group this week, with several new participants joining the project and another draft document nearing completion. We anticipate having an initial preview ready to share with members in time to discuss on the next Testing Town Hall event.
The group running preparations for our in-person events also met this week to look over the many paper submissions and further refine our shortlist of venues, we expect to make the final selection at the next meetup in two weeks’ time.
Our sandbox evaluation project has yet to restart but will be holding calls soon, accommodating requests from non-members interested in the evaluation process and how to get involved.
AMTSO Standard and Test Calendar
Our Standards team has been busy catching up on the tests released over the holiday season with a raft of commentary phases opened over the last couple of weeks; there are also many new tests for 2026 joining our lineup. Recent releases include AV-Test’s “Endurance Test” on Android, a test of internet banking safety from AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation, and the last round of 2025 tests on MacOS from AV-Test. Coming soon we expect to see the first 2026 VB100 certifications from Virus Bulletin, and a new consumer-level test from MRG Effitas. Here’s a summary of recent activities from our Standard compliance team:
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the SELabs Q4’2025 Endpoint Test for Enterprise, SMB, and Consumer (AMTSO-LS1-TP164) was issued on Thursday, January 8th, 2026 following a Phase 2 Commentary Collection.
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the AV-TEST November-December Android Consumer 2025 Test Report (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP144) was issued on Thursday, January 8th, 2026 following a Phase 2 Commentary Collection.
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation November 2025 Advanced “In the Wild” Malware Detection Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP138) was issued on Thursday, January 15th, 2026 following a Phase 2 Commentary Collection.
- Phase 2 Commentary Collection covering the AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation Internet Banking Protection Test, 2026 Edition (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP168) continues through Tuesday, January 20th, 2026.
- A Public Test Notification was issued on behalf of the AV Lab Cybersecurity Foundation for their upcoming Advanced In-the-Wild Malware 2026 Test Series (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP178) on Monday, January 5th, 2026. Phase 1 Commentary is now open.
- A Public Test Notification was issued on behalf of the Virus Bulletin for their upcoming Q1’2026 VB Spam Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP179) on Monday, January 12th, 2026. Phase 1 Commentary is now open.
- A Public Test Notification was issued on behalf of the SE Labs for their upcoming Q1 2026 Endpoint Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP181) on Thursday, January 15th, 2026. Phase 1 Commentary is now open.
Information on all published and upcoming tests being tracked by AMTSO can be found in our test calendar.
Board and Management
Our first Board meeting of the year will be held next week with an agenda focusing on upcoming events and meetings, as well as changes in the team at AMTSO. Watch this space for announcements!
Membership
We’re still working with several companies we expect to add to our official member list in the next few months, and look forward to making announcements here soon. Anyone interested in becoming an AMTSO member can find more information on our joining page.
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.