Welcome to our regular roundup of events and activities in and around AMTSO.
Meetings and Events
Planning for our 2025 in-person events continues, and we’re currently polling members on their availability and preferences – members are requested to complete the survey, linked from the homepage of the member site, to ensure their voices are heard.
Planning for our next Town Hall event in February is also ongoing, we hope to have a presentation from MRG Effitas delayed from the last event with other speakers awaiting confirmation; we still have some speaking slots to fill and more events planned for next year, anyone keen to share a presentation with our members and guest attendees should let us know via [email protected].
VPN Working Group
Our draft VPN testing guideline paper saw another round of final edits this week, these are now implemented and being checked over by the group prior to being shared with the wider membership for further input, we expect to circulate the draft next week and aim to push the paper through to final adoption phase early in 2025.
Sandbox Evaluation Working Group
We are closing public comment on our Sandbox Evaluation Framework draft at the end of this week, and will be moving forward to the next stage of adoption once all comments received have been reviewed and addressed. We hope to complete the process before the end of the year.
XDR Working Group
The XDR project team held an update call last week, looking at a first draft of our component comparison system; further work is required with data-gathering still to complete and presentation format to be finalized, but the outline of the system is in place and we look forward to making it available as a public tool. The project will then continue with development of guidance and best-practices for testing this evolving field of security solutions.
RTTL Working Group
The RTTL moved to a new schedule with a brief operational update call held this week, carrying out the usual checks on feeds and review of system updates, we will hold a group call with contributors in early 2025 to gather input on future improvements and expansions and will be reaching out to them ahead of that to get them considering what more they want out of the system.
AMTSO Standard and Test Calendar
A flurry of tests emerged in the last week or so of November, with many more expected before the close of 2024, keeping our test calendar maintenance dynamic. Here’s a summary of recent activities from our Standard compliance team:
- Phase 2 Commentary Collection covering the latest tranches of the AppEsteem UnWanted Software test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP108) was opened on Tuesday, November 26th and will run through to Wednesday, December 4th, 2024. The AMTSO Compliance Confirmation Report will be issued on completion of the Commentary process.
- Phase 2 Commentary Collection covering the TGL October 2024 Consumer Android Malware Detection Test (AMTSO Test ID: AMTSO-LS1-TP131) was opened on Wednesday, November 27th and will run through to Friday, December 6th, 2024. The AMTSO Compliance Confirmation Report will be issued on completion of the Commentary process.
- Phase 2 Commentary Collection for the latest rounds of the AV-Test Windows Consumer and Business tests (AMTSO Test IDs: AMTSO-LS1-TP107 and AMTSO-LS1-TP106) published this week, and the MRG Effitas Q3 360 reports on Windows and Android (AMTSO Test IDs: AMTSO-LS1-TP126 and AMTSO-LS1-TP125) due out next week, are expected to launch shortly.
Information on all published and upcoming tests being tracked by AMTSO can be found in our test calendar.
Board and Management
Our monthly Board call was held last week, reviewing progress on many projects and including a detailed update on promotional and outreach activities, which we expect to step up further as we move into 2025.
Membership
As we continue to contact sandbox specialists regarding our draft framework, and prepare to run a similar process with VPN providers for our upcoming testing guidelines, 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.