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As reported in March, tests run by the Austrian security testing company AV Comparatives found Live OneCare only detecting 82.4 per cent of the 500,000 test samples. This meant that the company did not certify the product.

By comparison, the latest malware detection tests carried out by AV Comparatives find that Microsoft has only managed to climb three places, from last to 14th place.

Security researcher Andreas Cleminti tested top anti-virus products against over 20,000 new samples

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of malware. He also gauged the number of false positives and speed of on-demand scanning of the products tested. While OneCare managed to achieve a 'Standard' certification, two other products did not.

AVG and Fortinet were those failed to pass muster. Fortinet was marked down after tests revealed that it picked up over 1,000 false positives, even though it correctly detected 71 per cent of new malware put through its filters. AVG failed the test as it only managed to detect eight per cent of new exploits.

'In the case of Fortinet, the false alarm rate is that high, that it does not even deserve the Standard level,' said Clementi in his report.

While Microsoft managed to gain certification of its product, it still only detected 18 per cent of new malware currently in the wild.

Top of the pile was Eset's NOD32 anti-virus product. It achieved an 'Advanced+' certification after it found very few false positives and the tests revealed it had a fast scanning speed.