With ever-growing malware, it is inevitable to protect your system with the right anti-virus solution. However, you have to constantly monitor the performance of your anti-virus program as well. You never know when your security program can be infected.
Malware normally target the anti-virus program first. To know if your anti-virus program is working fine, you need to take the risk of pushing virus onto your system. However, you don’t need to worry about the virus damaging your system if the security program does not detect it. Anti-Malware test file from EICAR is the right solution for this issue.
What is Anti Malware test file?
Anti-Malware test file from EICAR does not contain any virus. However, it acts as a dummy virus file. It only displays a one-line message. If your anti-virus program is working fine, it should detect this file as a virus. All security solution providers have agreed to detect this file as virus for test purposes. It does not harm your computer even when the anti-virus product does not detect it.
Initially, this test file was an Anti-Virus test file as it was only testing viruses and not spyware. However, the growing number of spyware cases required a test file for spyware as well. As the new test file effectively detects spyware as well, it is called a Anti-Malware test file. As the test file needs to be executed, it is created as a short and simple one. You can easily create a copy for further distribution.
Note: EICAR stands for European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research. Founded in 1991, EICAR is an independent platform for IT security experts to research and fight malware. The initial file was named Ducklin to give credit to its developer Paul Ducklin.
Why do you need it?
In today’s highly insecure online world, going online without an antivirus product is absolutely not recommended. At the same time, users need to know if the product is working fine. By downloading this anti-malware test file, users can check the ability of the security product.
But end-users are not the ones who need it critically. This anti-malware is more important to security solution developers. They need to know if the product accurately detects all types of malware. In addition, IT security people have to check the performance of the security network.
How to get the file?
The Anti-Malware test file is available on the EICAR website. You can download it from this location: http://2016.eicar.org/86-0-Intended-use.html
Alternately, you can create the file manually by using the following steps on your system :
- Open a notepad.
- Copy this string into the notepad: X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
- Save this file as eicar.com.
How to use the file?
- To run the file, disable the on-access scanner and save the file on your system.
- Then, enable the on-access scanner and run the test file.
- The anti-virus engine should detect the file and display a message.
- Using the file, you can test the performance of on-access scanner, email scanner, virus scanner and spyware scanner.