How to Test the Working of your Antivirus ? EICAR Test.

Have you ever wondered how to test your Antivirus software to ensureit’s proper working? Well here is a quick and easy way to test yourantivirus. The process is called EICAR test which will work on anyantivirus and was developed by European Institute of Computer Antivirus Research.This process can be used by people, companies and antivirus programmersto test the proper functioning of the antivirus/antimalware software without having to deal with the real computer virus which can causedamage to the computer. Here is a step-by-step procedure to test yourantivirus.

1. Open a notepad (New Text Document.TXT) and copy the following code exactly onto it, and save the notepad.

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

2. Rename the file from New Text Document.TXT to myfile.com
3. Now run the antivirus scan on this myfile.com file.
If the antivirus is functioning properly on your computer, then itshould generate a warning and immediately delete the file upon scanning. Otherwise you may have to re-install your antivirus.

NOTE: Most antivirus will pop-out a warning message in the Step-1 itself

You can also place the myfile.com file in a ZIP or RAR file and run ascan on it so as to ensure whether your antivirus can detect the teststring in the compressed archive. Any antivirus when scanning this filewill respond exactly as it will do for a genuine virus/malicious code.This test will cause no damage to your computer even though theantivirus will flag it as a malicious script. Hence it is the safestmethod to test the proper functioning of any antivirus.

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