According to an analysis conducted by the AV-Comparatives test lab on behalf of The H's associates at heise Security, less than half of the 22 anti-virus programs tested protect users against the currently circulating Java exploit that targets a highly critical vulnerability in Java version 7 Update 6.

Only 9 of the 22 tested products managed to block both variants of the exploit (Avast Free, AVG, Avira, ESET, G Data, Kaspersky, PC Tools, Sophos and Symantec). Twelve virus scanners were found to be unsuccessful (AhnLab, Bitdefender, BullGuard, eScan, F-Secure, Fortinet, GFI-Vipre, Ikarus, McAfee, Panda Cloud Antivirus, Trend Micro and Webroot). Microsoft's free Security Essentials component at least managed to block the basic version of the exploit.

(source: )