I didn't have much time on hand these past few days, since finding those viruses/source code was quite difficult (and getting infected online I thought was easy)... Also could just install McAfee, Kaspersky 6 and NOD32.
Out of the list that the av-test.org gave, I could only find 408 out of 1806 viruses. All of the binaries I found were detected, since each companies had it in their DB. But then out of the 408.... I found source code of 47 viruses. Modifying them (changing memory pointers, adding few dummy structs) and trying was the test... And here is where I found the bad news (atleast for me)...
McAfee detected all of the modifications. And to my surprise my favs KAV and NOD32 werent able to detect 5 and 3 respectively... I was shocked that after my tests a yr ago... I used to hate McAfee, but now did the best detection.
I decided to experiment a little more, using PECompact and UPX. This time McAfee detected only 6 out of the 47. Infact out of the total 408, after repacking only 21 were detected (mayb the signatures dint change much for these 21 detected). On the other hand, with packing KAV detected 400 and NOD32 detected 392.
After this repacking, I realized even with 3 AVs installed, u cant be sure of being protected (u still need common-sense). I guess a lot more can be done to improve the engines. Also, I was trying my hand in VB (macro) and ASM (for other stuff)... I have found KAV6 to detect a few of these during compiling, which is gr8. But neither NOD32 nor McAfee detected these!!
@mods: this thread should have been in the security solutions section. I actually went there first to find it!