Beyond the Hype: How 2025 Security Tests Reveal True Enterprise Value

INNSBRUCK, Austria – December 09, 2025 – In the relentless battle against cyber threats, Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and their teams navigate a battlefield saturated with marketing hype, technical jargon, and bold vendor promises. Choosing the right endpoint security solution is a high-stakes decision with profound financial and operational consequences. In this environment, the demand for objective, transparent, and comparable data has never been more urgent. Answering this call, independent testing lab AV-Comparatives has released its 2025 enterprise security reports, providing a critical lens on which technologies actually deliver on their claims.

The findings from the 2025 Endpoint Prevention and Response (EPR) Test and the EDR Detection Validation Test cut through the noise, offering a data-driven look at how leading security products perform against sophisticated, real-world attack simulations. For business leaders and security practitioners alike, these results are more than just a product scorecard; they are a strategic guide to building a resilient and cost-effective defense.

The Anatomy of a Real-World Security Test

To provide genuine value, a security test must mirror the reality of a modern cyberattack. AV-Comparatives achieves this by moving beyond isolated malware samples and conducting full kill-chain simulations based on the MITRE ATT&CK framework, a globally recognized knowledge base of adversary tactics and techniques. This ensures every product is subjected to the same multi-stage assault, providing a true apples-to-apples comparison.

The 2025 EPR Test was particularly rigorous, evaluating 12 enterprise solutions against 50 distinct attack scenarios. These simulations spanned the entire intrusion lifecycle, from initial compromise and establishing a foothold to internal propagation, credential theft, and final data exfiltration. Products were assessed on both their active response (the ability to automatically block an attack) and their passive response (the ability to provide clear, actionable data for a security team to manually intervene).

Complementing this, the EDR Detection Validation Test took a different but equally crucial approach. By disabling all prevention features on seven participating solutions, the test focused purely on visibility and detection quality. This methodology answers a critical question for Security Operations Center (SOC) teams: If an attacker bypasses our initial defenses, will our EDR tool provide the coherent, actionable telemetry needed to detect, investigate, and expel the threat? The test measured the quality of data logged at each step of a complex intrusion, providing invaluable insight into a product's threat-hunting capabilities.

The 2025 Verdict: Leaders Emerge in a Crowded Field

The rigorous nature of these evaluations inevitably separates the market leaders from the rest of the pack. In the comprehensive 2025 EPR Test, ten out of twelve participating vendors earned the prestigious "Certified" status. The list of certified solutions includes major industry players: Bitdefender, Check Point, CrowdStrike, Elastic, ESET, Fortinet, G Data, Kaspersky, Palo Alto Networks, and VIPRE. The fact that two vendors failed to meet the certification threshold underscores the test's high standards and its utility as a true differentiator.

Among the top performers, several vendors demonstrated exceptional capabilities. Bitdefender was highlighted for achieving the highest detection rate across all 50 attack scenarios while also posting the lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Elastic Security also delivered a standout performance, achieving a remarkable 99.3% detection rate across both active and passive response methods.

In the specialized EDR Detection Validation Test, five of the seven participating solutions achieved certification by proving their ability to provide high-quality telemetry during an attack. The certified products were CrowdStrike Falcon Pro, ESET PROTECT Enterprise Cloud, G DATA 365 MXDR, Kaspersky Next EDR Expert, and Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR Pro. Again, two solutions did not meet the certification requirements, signaling to the market that not all EDR platforms provide the same level of visibility.

From Technical Metrics to Strategic Investment

For business leaders, the most significant innovation in modern security testing is the integration of financial and operational metrics. AV-Comparatives' EPR report goes beyond pure detection rates to model the five-year Total Cost of Ownership for a 5,000-endpoint environment. This analysis considers not only the product's sticker price but also the financial impact of breaches and the operational accuracy of the solution. This is a crucial evolution, as a product that generates excessive false positives can quickly overwhelm a security team, driving up operational costs and masking real threats.

This holistic view is crystallized in the "Enterprise EPR CyberRisk Quadrant™," which plots each product's performance against its cost-efficiency. This enables leaders to strategically balance risk, performance, and budget, moving the conversation from a purely technical discussion to one of strategic business value. It directly addresses the boardroom question: "How does this investment reduce our financial risk and improve our operational efficiency?"

As Andreas Clementi, CEO of AV-Comparatives, stated, "Security leaders face enormous pressure to choose the right technologies in an environment saturated with complexity. Transparency, comparability, and clarity are essential. Our 2025 enterprise reports demonstrate our commitment to providing openly documented, realistic tests that help organisations understand how solutions behave in practice, not just in theory."

A Market Standard for Trust and Transparency

AV-Comparatives is not alone in its mission. Other independent organizations like SE Labs and CyberRatings.org also conduct rigorous evaluations, each contributing to a broader industry ecosystem built on empirical evidence. This collective effort provides a vital counterbalance to vendor marketing, empowering enterprises to make decisions based on performance data rather than promises.

With over two decades of experience, AV-Comparatives' commitment to publishing its full methodologies, scoring models, and per-step attack analyses sets a benchmark for transparency. By making this information public, the organization allows security teams to independently interpret the findings and understand the why behind a product's performance.

In a threat landscape where a single breach can cost millions, the insights derived from these independent tests are indispensable. They provide the clarity needed to not only select the right tools but also to continuously validate and refine an organization's defense strategy, ensuring that security investments deliver tangible protection and measurable value.