Welcome to our regular roundup of events and activities in and around AMTSO.
Meetings and Events
We announced some initial information on our 2026 Cyber Research Conference last week – we will be heading to Brussels, Belgium on October 20-21. We’re working to finalize the venue and other details and will announce these ASAP, the Call for Papers is already open for submissions.
The announcement was made on last week’s Testing Town Hall event, alongside presentations from members and discussion of proposed updates to our Testing Protocol Standard. A full recording of the event and slide decks have been shared with members via our member site, and we’ve also posted some edited highlights publicly (see the event page or our YouTube channel), with more to come in the next few days.
The next Testing Town Hall is being planned and should take place in March/April of 2026, details will be issued early in the new year.
Working Groups
We will be holding a special call this week for our RTTL team, working on a wide-ranging set of improvements and expansions to the system and how it operates, with a focus on enrichment of the threat intel it provides. A regular call was held last week to perform the usual oversight of the system.
Our Scam & Phishing project team held another meeting this week, with a first draft of testing guidance nearing completion; this will be made available for review and feedback, to members and non-members alike, within the next few weeks.
Our multiscanner team also met this week, reviewing feedback on proposals to create a certification scheme for technologies being used in multi-engine analysis setups. We expect to have an initial draft of the process for review early in Q1 of 2026, and have been reaching out to affected parties for early feedback.
Our meeting planning team also held a call this week, keeping tabs on progress of plans for Brussels in October 2026, including work to operate the event alongside a potential local partner.
All Working Group schedules are now on hold for the holiday period and will re-commence in early January.
AMTSO Standard and Test Calendar
A very busy few weeks for our Standards team as test labs file their plans for 2026 testing. Recent releases include slightly delayed Q3 reports from MRG Effitas’ 360 Degree evaluations, the latest regular updates from AppEsteem, and the 2025 MITRE ATT&CK evaluations. Here’s a summary of recent activities from our Standard compliance team:
- A Public Test Notification was issued on behalf of Artifact Security for their upcoming H1’2026 Scam and Phishing Evaluation Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP171) on Friday, December 12th, 2025. Phase 1 Commentary is now open.
- Public Test Notifications were issued on behalf of TGL (Testing Ground Labs) for their December 2025 Consumer Android Malware Detection Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP172) and December 2025 Enterprise Android Malware Detection Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP173) on Sunday, December 14th, 2025. Phase 1 Commentary on all of these test plans is now open.
- Public Test Notifications were issued on behalf of MRG-Effitas for their Q4’2025 360 Degree Android Assessment and Certification (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP175), Q4’2025 360 Degree Assessment and Certification (Endpoint) (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP176), and Q1’2026 360 Degree Consumer Assessment and Certification (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP177) on Monday, December 15th, 2025. Phase 1 Commentary on all of these test plans is now open.
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the MRG-Effitas Q3’2025 Android Efficacy Assessment Test Report (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP162) was issued on Friday, December 5th, 2025.
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the AppEsteem July to November tests as part of their 2025 UwS Test Series reports (AMTSO Test ID : AMTSO-LS1-TP137) was issued on Monday, December 8th, 2025.
- A Public Test Notification was issued on behalf of Virus Bulletin for their 2026 VB100 Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP174) on Tuesday, December 16th, 2025. Phase 1 Commentary is now open.
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the MRG-Effitas Q3’2025 360-Degree Endpoint Assessment and Certification Test Report (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP163) was issued on Thursday, December 18th, 2025.
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the Virus Bulletin Q4 2025 VBSpam Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP166) was issued on Thursday, December 18th, 2025.
- A Compliance Confirmation Report covering the Testing Ground Labs October 2025 Android Consumer Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP167) was issued on Thursday, December 18th, 2025.
- A reminder to all testers that 2025 annual test cycles are coming to a close now that we are in December. New test plans covering 2026 will need to be provided for public test notifications by January 2026.
Information on all published and upcoming tests being tracked by AMTSO can be found in our test calendar.
Board and Management
Our Board will hold its next formal meeting in mid-January, with the agenda including plans for our Brussels event, updates on finances and Working Group progress, and mapping out the timeline to our 2026 Board elections.
Membership
We welcome our newest member, RapidSeedbox, and look forward to more new members joining our community in the new year. Anyone interested in becoming an AMTSO member can find more information on our joining page.
ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER
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