Welcome to our regular roundup of events and activities in and around AMTSO.
Meetings and Events
We held our latest Testing Town Hall event last week, with talks from Venak Security on “AI Malware Simulation”, and from SE Labs on “Disparities between Cyber Security and the Education System”. Full recordings and slide decks have been made available to AMTSO members via the member site, and edited highlights have been posted publicly on the meeting page and our YouTube channel.
The next Town Hall event is scheduled for February – if you’re interested in giving a presentation to our members and guest attendees, get in touch using [email protected].
Sandbox Evaluation Working Group
Our Sandbox Evaluation Framework draft remains open for public comment, with outreach to experts in the field ongoing. Once all feedback has been gathered and addressed the final version will begin the process of adoption as an official AMTSO guideline, and the Working Group will move on to the next phase of developing guidance on sample selection.
VPN Working Group
Our VPN group met again this week to wrap up the initial draft of their first guideline paper. A further tranche of open discussion points were resolved, the document is now undergoing final copyediting and will be reviewed a final time by the project team prior to being circulated for open review by the wider membership and other interested parties. This group also plans to continue working on a second phase of the project once the first paper is completed and adopted.
XDR Working Group
Our XDR call last week was postponed due to overlap with the Testing Town Hall event, but further intel-gathering has continued behind the scenes, data merging is under way and we expect to have a first iteration of our component guide ready shortly.
RTTL Working Group
The RTTL team also held a call this week, with agenda items including further outreach to CERTs and others interested in using the system as a central point of contact to share samples and data. The working group’s schedule is being adjusted and we plan to hold more regular all-hands calls with contributors to ensure we capture new requirements and improvement proposals.
AMTSO Standard and Test Calendar
November has been fairly quiet so far for our Test Calendar, with many labs preparing for end-of-year reports – we expect to see major releases from MRG Effitas, SE Labs and others in the next few weeks, and significant work for the Standard compliance team as we head towards 2025 and new series tests from several participating labs. Here’s a summary of recent activities from our Standard compliance team:
- Phase 2 Commentary Collection covering SE Labs Q3’2024 Enterprise, Small Business, and Consumer Endpoint Test Reports (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP122) closed on Monday, November 4th, 2024. The AMTSO Compliance Confirmation Report was issued on the same date.
- Phase 2 Commentary Collection covering AV-TEST’s September/October 2024 Test Report covering Android Antivirus Applications (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP103) as part of their annual Test Series closed on Thursday, November 7th, 2024. The AMTSO Compliance Confirmation Report was issued on the same date.
- All testers running Annual Test Series are reminded that December 2024 will be the last month of their existing test plan cycles. Please send us your revised 2025 Test Plans as soon as possible for circulation during December 2024.
Information on all published and upcoming tests being tracked by AMTSO can be found in our test calendar.
Board and Management
We will hold our monthly meeting of the Board of Directors next week. Topics for discussion include expanding our presence on LinkedIn and other social outreach, our guideline adoption processes, and the usual updates on finances and changes to membership. We will also be looking at a planned “Hall of Fame” of the many people who’ve contributed to AMTSO over the years.
Membership
We welcome our latest member, Venak Security. We continue to reach out to potential new members, particularly those with an interest in our ongoing sandbox and VPN projects. Anyone interested in joining our community and participating in our working groups 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.