Windows Defender has improved its performance significantly in the most recent antivirus tests, and Microsoft has used this occasion to praise the capabilities of the app that’s protecting user data by default in Windows 10.
In a
blog post detailing the latest results obtained by
Windows Defender in the January-February 2018 AV-TEST research, the Redmond-based software giant explains that its software can even outperform third-party solutions “in almost all areas” when it comes to performance.
Specifically, Microsoft highlights that Windows Defender got a perfect score in
Protection tests, while also incorrectly flagging as false positive only two malware samples out of 2000.
Windows Defender scored 5.5 points out of a maximum of 6 in
Performance tests, which Microsoft says “outperforms the industry in almost all areas and these results reflect the investments we put in optimizing Windows Defender AV performance for high-frequency actions.”
Windows Defender Security Center
Microsoft goes on to explain that despite Windows Defender missing two malware samples in the antivirus tests, Windows 10 users are still protected thanks to the security feature arsenal that’s bundled into the operating system.
“While Windows Defender ATP’s antivirus capability achieved a perfect overall Protection score in the January-February 2018 tests and only missed two out of thousands of samples tested, it performed even better than the results suggest,” Microsoft explains.
“The Windows Defender Security Intelligence team tested the two missed samples against the entire Windows Defender ATP stack to assess these samples’ ability to infect machines in real-world enterprise environments. The team was able to confirm that the two missed samples were detected and mitigated by other components of the Windows Defender ATP stack.”
Windows Defender has evolved in Windows 10 to become Windows Defender Security Center, grouping more than just the antivirus engine into a whole suite of security features able to block and protect users running the operating system.
