This page explains how Product Reviews on Cyber-Threat.net, and reviews of courses and training tools in Training & Awareness, are put together, what the label at the top of each review means, and what we don’t do. It sits alongside our Editorial Standards and Corrections, which apply to everything we publish.
Reviews on Cyber-Threat.net are our opinions. Each one is based on the evidence and method it sets out, as they stood on the date shown in the review. Products, prices and licence terms change, so check the current position with the vendor before you buy or deploy anything. Reviews are general information, not professional, technical or legal advice for your circumstances.
The short version
Our reviews to date are documentation reviews, based on vendor documentation and other published evidence. We have not installed, run or attacked the products in them. Each one is built from what the vendor publishes, what independent labs have measured, what users have reported and what analysts have said, and every claim is linked so you can check it. A review based on our own testing will always carry the hands-on label described below.
The label at the top of every review
Near the top of every review, before the first section heading, you will find one of two labels:
- Documentation review: not tested. We have not used the product. The review is a structured reading of published evidence, and it tells you what that evidence does and doesn’t cover.
- Hands-on review: tested. We have run the product in our own lab. The review says which version we tested, on what, when, and what we did to it.
If a review mixes the two, for example where we tested one product in a comparison and not the others, the label says which is which.
How a review is researched
We draw on four kinds of evidence and keep them apart, because they are not equally reliable.
- Vendor documentation. Data sheets, product documentation, release notes, published price lists and licence terms. This tells us what a product is meant to do. It is not evidence that it does it, and we write it up as the vendor’s claim.
- Independent lab results. Published results from testing organisations such as AV-TEST (opens in a new tab), AV-Comparatives (opens in a new tab), SE Labs (opens in a new tab) and MITRE ATT&CK Evaluations (opens in a new tab). We say which test, which date and which product version, and we note where a vendor sat a test out.
- Public peer-review scores. Aggregated user ratings from sites such as Gartner® Peer Insights™ (opens in a new tab) and PeerSpot (opens in a new tab). We report peer scores in full: the overall score and what it is out of, the number of reviews behind it, the market or category it sits in, and the date we looked, with a link to the page. We report the overall score, not a selection of favourable reviews. A score built on a handful of reviews is reported as exactly that. When we use Gartner Peer Insights, we follow Gartner’s own format, for example “[Product] has a [x] out of 5 based on [n] ratings in the [market] market on Gartner Peer Insights™ as of [date]”, with a link to the page and no Gartner logos or badges, and we carry the trademark notice and disclaimer Gartner asks for, so that nobody mistakes a peer score for Gartner’s endorsement, or ours.
- Analyst reports. Where we cite an analyst firm, we give the full title, author, firm and publication date, along with any disclaimer the firm requires. For Gartner research that means the attribution Gartner asks for, “Gartner, [title], [author(s)], [publication date]”, with quotes reproduced word for word, and Gartner’s objectivity disclaimer wherever a vendor’s inclusion in a report is mentioned. We don’t paraphrase a placement into an endorsement.
Every specification, price and figure links to its source, a primary one wherever it exists, and the review states the date we checked it. Prices go out of date faster than anything else in a review, so they get the date stamp first. If we can’t source a number, it doesn’t appear, and where the source is someone else’s reporting, we say whose. When we have worked something out ourselves, such as an annual cost from a monthly price, we say it is our arithmetic and show the inputs.
How verdicts are reached
A verdict answers a practical question: who should shortlist this, who shouldn’t, and what should they check before signing anything. Before writing it, we set out what the product needs to do well for the readers it is aimed at. We then weigh the evidence in order of strength: independent measurement first, then consistent user reporting, then vendor claims. The verdict is signed off by the editor, and dated, before anything else is added to the review, including any links.
A documentation review can tell you a product is well documented, well regarded and fairly priced. It cannot tell you how it behaves on your network on a bad Tuesday, and its verdict says so. Where the evidence is thin or contradictory, the verdict says that too, rather than splitting the difference.
Independence
- Affiliate links only in reviews of consumer kit, and only after the verdict. Reviews of consumer kit may carry affiliate links. By consumer kit we mean things an individual buys for themselves or their household, at a public price and without a business account: personal and family password manager plans, hardware security keys, home routers, books, individual certifications and self-paced courses bought by a person at a public price, and personal computing hardware bought by individuals (for example laptops, desktop computers and small AI workstations sold to the public at a published price). Reviews of business and enterprise tools never carry affiliate links. That includes corporate or enterprise training seats and phishing-simulation platforms. Business and enterprise products (including rack servers, enterprise licences and kit sold only through sales teams) never carry affiliate links. That includes business plans of consumer products, and anything sold per seat, through resellers or on a quoted price. A review written for people buying on behalf of an organisation carries none, even if some of the products also come in a consumer version. We write the verdict and the editor signs it off with a date before any link is added. Every product in the review is then linked in the same way and in the same place. A link that earns us a commission is marked “(Ad)”, and a product that pays nothing gets a plain link to its maker’s own page. A review with affiliate links says so at the top, before the review starts, and is labelled “Review · Ad”. Guides, resource pages and opinion pieces may also use labelled affiliate links. Whether a product has an affiliate scheme plays no part in whether we review it, what we say about it or where it comes in a comparison.
- No copy approval. Vendors don’t see a review before it is published and have no say over what it says. We may contact a vendor to check a fact, and when we do, we tell them which fact.
- Reviews are never sponsored. No one pays us to review a product or for what a review says, vendors don’t see a review before it is published, and any kit or licence we have been lent is declared in the review. Our reviews page may carry one sponsor slot, labelled “Ad” and naming who paid. It never appears inside a review. Sponsors don’t see or approve any review, and their products are reviewed on the same terms as everyone else’s. The full rules are in our independence policy.
- Loans, kept items and travel are declared. If a vendor lends us hardware or gives us a trial or not-for-resale licence for testing, the review says what we received, from whom, and whether it went back or was left to lapse. If we keep anything supplied for review, or accept travel connected with it, the review says so. We decline gifts beyond the trivial.
Hands-on testing
When we test a product ourselves, we do it in an isolated lab. A tested review carries the hands-on label and records the product version, test dates, lab set-up and method, so another tester could repeat the work and tell us if we got it wrong. Until a product has been through the lab, its review stays labelled as a documentation review, and a documentation review carries no numeric score. We would rather tell you what we haven’t done than imply that we have.
Updates and corrections
Products change, and so do their prices. Each review carries the date its facts were last checked. When we update a review materially, we say what changed and when.
If you think a review is wrong, including vendors who think so, please follow the process on our corrections policy. Significant errors are corrected openly, with a note saying what changed. We don’t quietly change a verdict.
Limits of liability
In this section, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Cyber-Threat.net and the people who publish it. We take care over every review, but we can’t promise that a product will behave for you as the evidence we describe suggests, or that every detail is still current when you read it. Please make your own checks before relying on a review for a purchase or security decision.
If you use this site as a consumer, we are not liable for business losses, or for loss that was not reasonably foreseeable when you read the review, and nothing here affects your legal rights as a consumer. Nothing on this page excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot be excluded or limited by law. Our terms of use set out our liability in full, including to business readers.