Test Your Anti-Virus

You can also test your anti virus program for its effectiveness using a simple notepad trick. Follow the steps below to know more:

Open Notepad.

Copy the code give below in the notepad file:
X5O!P%@AP[4PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
Save it with an .exe extension like testvirus.exe

This test is also known as EICAR (European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research) test file.

The file is simply a text file of either 68 or 70 bytes that is a legitimate executable file called a COM file that can be run by Microsoft operating systems and some work-alikes (except for 64-bit due to 16-bit limitations), including OS/2. When executed, it will print “EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!” and then stop. The test string was specifically engineered to consist of ASCII human-readable characters, easily created using a standard computer keyboard. It makes use of self-modifying code to work around technical issues that this constraint makes on the execution of the test string.