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Test to See if Your Antivirus Software Works (Safe)

By on February 28, 2008 (71 Comments)

Most of you probably have anti-virus software on your computer. If you do, good job; however, are you sure it works? Let’s do a quick test.

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

  1. Open Notepad and paste the above line into it.

    2. 02 Test to See if Your Antivirus Software Works (Safe)

  2. Save the file and real time protection should immediately find the file. (If you have real time protection turned off, you will need to scan the file.)

    3. 03 Test to See if Your Antivirus Software Works (Safe)

  3. If this doesn’t work for you, make sure your virus checker is up to date and working.

This file is a dummy virus, which simulates a virus. This string is provided by EICAR for distribution as the “EICAR Standard Anti-Virus Test File”, The file is a legitimate DOS program, and produces sensible results when run (it prints the message “EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!”).

Test to See if Your Antivirus Software Works (Safe)

About Rich

Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix the problems he creates.

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Comments

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  • ken

    avast won’t catch it but nod32 security suite did

  • ESET Smart Security 4.0 [Secur

    [...] ensure ESET is doing its job, I created a fake virus, which is an Eicar test file, to make sure the real-time protection was [...]

  • Para probar tu Antivirus &

    [...] Fuente: Windows Guides [...]

  • Pingback: Para probar tu Antivirus « Patricio Córdoba

  • Rohit Bansal

    Heyy!! Kaspersky too caught it and deleted the file.
    Thanks buddy!!

  • Rohit Bansal

    Heyy!! Kaspersky too caught it and deleted the file.
    Thanks buddy!!

  • Rohit Bansal

    Heyy!! Kaspersky too caught it and deleted the file.
    Thanks buddy!!

  • Mel

    I like the test but I think windows usually does a pretty good job of detecting when anti-virus is working…unless a virus is making windows think…er…hmm..

  • Mel

    I like the test but I think windows usually does a pretty good job of detecting when anti-virus is working…unless a virus is making windows think…er…hmm..

  • Mel

    I like the test but I think windows usually does a pretty good job of detecting when anti-virus is working…unless a virus is making windows think…er…hmm..

  • jfbetel

    Test worked like a charm with “MSE” thanks a lot. Once again you’re on the money with your suggestions!

  • jfbetel

    Test worked like a charm with “MSE” thanks a lot. Once again you’re on the money with your suggestions!

  • jfbetel

    Test worked like a charm with “MSE” thanks a lot. Once again you’re on the money with your suggestions!

  • Azdi Azizan

    Work for My Microsoft Security Essential. ;)

  • Azdi Azizan

    Work for My Microsoft Security Essential. ;)

  • Azdi Azizan

    Work for My Microsoft Security Essential. ;)

  • sfeldner

    You didn't mention it but the file should be saved as a .com file… A .txt file containing the same string should not be detected as a virus. Interesting though, .com files can't be run on a x64 system but MSE still found it…

  • http://richr.org/ Rich

    A .txt file will be detected as it's a test string, not file.

  • Vckmishra7

    liked a lot thnks keep sending stuffs like these

  • vaseea

    hello, my eset smart security suite 5, don’t even let me save the file,in the momment i press the save button into c: drive, the antivirus quarentined the file.

    • http://richr.org/ Rich

      Nice! ESET is using real-time protection and caught the string as you attempted to save it :)

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