Kaspersky Internet Security (2014)

Pros Excellent antivirus lab test scores. Good score in hands-on malware removal test. Accurate phishing detection. Excellent spam filtering. Intelligent firewall blocks leak tests and exploits. Parental control system more complete than many suites. Safe Money feature adds layers of protection for sensitive online transactions.

Cons Just average score in hands-on malware blocking test. Some difficulty installing on malware-infested test systems. No remote management or monitoring with parental control. Bottom Line The 2014 edition of Kaspersky Internet Security includes everything you'd expect from a security suite, and all of the components work as they should. It doesn't score as well in my hands-on antivirus tests as in independent lab tests, but it's a good choice for protection.

By Neil J. Rubenking

The point of getting a security suite rather than a collection of individual security components is to have all elements of your security protection working together. Kaspersky Internet Security (2014) smoothly combines antivirus, firewall, phishing protection, antispam, parental control, and more. The components all do a good job; no slackers in this bunch! Do note that "(2014)" isn't actually part of the name, as Kaspersky has gone number-free. I include it simply to distinguish this version from others.

The product's main window looks very, very similar to Kaspersky's standalone antivirus. It reports basic security status and offers quick access to four important components. The real visible difference comes when you click the up-arrow at bottom right to see the full component list; now you can see that the suite does more, a lot more.

Shared Antivirus
Kaspersky's protection against viruses, spyware, Trojans, and all other types of malware is the same as what you get in the standalone Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2014), so you'll want to read my review of that product for full details. I'll briefly summarize my findings here.

Getting the product installed on my twelve malware-infested test system took quite a bit of back-and-forth with tech support. It stretched into several days due to time-zone differences. In the end all of the problems were solved by use of Kaspersky's own ancillary security tools, which is good.

Kaspersky detected 81 percent of the malware samples and scored 6.1 points for removal. The best product among those tested with the same collection of samples was Bitdefender Internet Security (2014), which detected 83 percent and scored 6.6 points. For a full explanation of my hands-on malware removal test, see How We Test Malware Removal.

Kaspersky Internet Security (2014) malware removal chart

In my malware blocking test, Kaspersky scored lower than many, with 86 percent detection and 8.2 points. That's decent, but Ad-Aware Pro Security 10.5 beat all others tested using this same sample set with 94 percent detection and an impressive 9.4 points. For details on how I perform the hands-on malware blocking test, see How We Test Malware Blocking.

Kaspersky Internet Security (2014) malware blocking chart

Kaspersky always seems to score better with the independent labs than in my hands-on test; I give it credit for those good ratings. It earned top ratings in all the tests that I track from AV-Comparatives and averaged 15.8 of 18 possible points in AV-Test's three-fold evaluation. Only Bitdefender has earned consistenly higher scores. To learn more about the independent antivirus labs and their tests, please see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Kaspersky Internet Security (2014) lab tests chart  

Other Shared Features
The same Web Anti-Virus technology that prevents accidental access to malware-hosting websites also serves to keep users away from fraudulent (phishing) websites. Like all truly effective antiphishing solutions, Kaspersky uses a combination of cloud-based lookup for known phishing sites and heuristic analysis of unknowns. When I tested it using extremely fresh phishing URLs, Kaspersky's detection rate was just one percentage point behind that of consistent phishing champ Norton Internet Security (2013). For an explanation of how I locate the newest phishing URLs and perform this test, see How We Test Antiphishing.

Kaspersky Internet Security (2014) antiphishing chart

As with the standalone antivirus, Kaspersky's suite builds tech support right into the product. Both also offer a useful collection of security-related bonus tools, including a bootable Rescue Disk, a vulnerability scanner, and tools to wipe traces of computer and Internet use.

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