Welcome to our regular roundup of events and activities in and around AMTSO.
Meetings and Events
Preparations for our 2026 Cyber Research Conference continue, with the venue announced we’ve been working on the technical and catering requirements as well as the content, with the Call for Papers continuing and outreach to potential keynotes ongoing – we expect to make some initial speaker announcements very soon. AMTSO members can already sign up to attend via the member site, and we plan to open sign-up for non-members shortly.
Planning for the next Testing Town Hall event, set for April 8th, are also ongoing, with several of our project teams planning to share their progress and gather feedback from attendees alongside presentations from members and guest speakers. Details and an initial agenda should be going out next week.
Working Groups
With several industry events taking place this week several of our Working Group meetings were postponed or run with limited attendance, but work on our various projects has continued. The RTTL team met last week to review the final set of comments on a detailed proposal document laying out plans for major expansion of the system, which we expect to share with members in the next few weeks. Our Sandbox team also met last week, with a guest attendee joining to learn more about our evaluation framework and future plans. Our Scam & Phishing project continues to work on the final drafting of its guideline document which should also be ready for member and public review very soon, and our Multiscanning group is also moving forward with trial testing under the proposed framework to recommend to platform operators.
AMTSO Standard and Test Calendar
Recent additions to our Test Calendar include Android reports from MRG Effitas and Testing Ground Labs, the latest Windows study from AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation, and another round the VB100 certifications from Virus Bulletin, as well as a focused look at ransomware protection from our newest test lab member Artifact Security. Coming soon we expect to see the first 2026 reports from AV-Test, covering Windows and Android protections, and from AppEsteem looking at unwanted software coverage. Here’s a summary of recent activities from our Standard compliance team:
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the MRG-Effitas Q4’2025 Android Efficacy Assessment Test (AMTSO-LS1-TP175) was issued on Tuesday, February 24th, 2026 following a Phase 2 Commentary Collection during the reporting period.
- Compliance Confirmation Reports covering the Testing Ground Labs December 2025 Android Consumer Test (AMTSO-LS1-TP172) and Android Enterprise Test (AMTSO-LS1-TP173) were issued Monday, February 23rd, 2026 following a Phase 2 Commentary Collection period.
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the Artifact Security Ransomware Impact Test – Q1’2026 (AMTSO-LS1-TP183) was issued Monday, February 23rd, 2026.
- Phase 2 Commentary Collection is now underway covering the AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation January 2026 Advanced “In the Wild” Malware Detection Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP178). Collection will be open through Thursday, February 26th, 2026.
- A Public Test Notification was issued on behalf of Testing Ground Labs for their upcoming February 2026 Consumer Android Malware Detection Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP189) on Monday, February 23rd, 2026.
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation January 2026 Advanced “In the Wild” Malware Detection Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP178) was issued on Thursday, February 26th, 2026 following a Phase 2 Commentary period.
Information on all published and upcoming tests being tracked by AMTSO can be found in our Test Calendar.
Board and Management
We held a Board meeting last week, the first for new President Stefan Dumitrascu of Artifact Security, who presented a selection of his ideas for future developments for the organization – watch this space for more details as plans are put into action. Members of the Advisory Board were also present to provide feeback and guidance. Next week we will be circulating details of our upcoming Board elections, with four positions up for vote among our members.
Membership
We continue to finalize the onboarding of some new members and should be able to announce them shortly, with more applications arriving this week too. 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.