Testing your antivirus software
Submitted on November 24th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Windows and Security
If you want your computer to work for more than 10 minutes, you have to have anti-virus software installed on your PC. Why 10 minutes? That’s how long it takes for a ‘net-connected PC to become infected (so say some studies)! Want to know if you antivirus is actually working? Right-click on this link, save this file as EICAR.COM (it’s already named that, by the way) and run it. Your antivirus should pop open a notification window, and if it does, it’s working! Don’t worry, the file will not harm your system. You can learn all about it, at the Eicar.com site.
[Via Sniptools]
November 24th, 2005 at 1:03 am
Oddly enough, my Trend Micro didn’t pick up the file. However, it did snatch the Eicar zip file from their website. Strange…
November 24th, 2005 at 8:46 am
Same here with Avast…
Are your sure you didn’t “clean” the file you’re mirroring? (just wondering…)
November 24th, 2005 at 12:18 pm
Seems like you guys are right, I did indeed upload a clean file! My fault! You can download the file from the EICAR site, or simply open Notepad and add the following string: X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H* then save it as EICAR.COM .
November 25th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
works nicely with avg!
March 23rd, 2006 at 8:23 am
it works with Avast too! great!