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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.

    anti-virus

  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.)

    anti-virus

  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!”).

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 them.

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Comments

71 thoughts on “Test to See if Your Antivirus Software Works (Safe)”

  1. ken says:

    avast won’t catch it but nod32 security suite did

  2. ESET Smart Security 4.0 [Secur says:

    […] 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 […]

  3. Para probar tu Antivirus & says:

    […] Fuente: Windows Guides […]

  4. Pingback: Para probar tu Antivirus « Patricio Córdoba
  5. Rohit Bansal says:

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

  6. Rohit Bansal says:

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

  7. Rohit Bansal says:

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

  8. Mel says:

    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..

  9. Mel says:

    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..

  10. Mel says:

    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..

  11. jfbetel says:

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

  12. jfbetel says:

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

  13. jfbetel says:

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

  14. Azdi Azizan says:

    Work for My Microsoft Security Essential. ;)

  15. Azdi Azizan says:

    Work for My Microsoft Security Essential. ;)

  16. Azdi Azizan says:

    Work for My Microsoft Security Essential. ;)

  17. sfeldner says:

    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…

  18. Rich says:

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

  19. Vckmishra7 says:

    liked a lot thnks keep sending stuffs like these

  20. vaseea says:

    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.

    1. Rich says:

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

Comments are closed.


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