Whether you’re a home user or a system administrator you’ve problably wondered at some point if your anti-virus protection is actually working.
The EICAR test file is available for this purpose and is particually helpful when testing large scale deployments in corporate environments and email notification to the administrators.
The file poses no risk to the computers, it is just a test file, but it triggers the active anti-virus software to respond as if it were a virus.
To use, copy the code below to a text file, remove the [REMOVE] and save the file. As soon as the file is saved or opened the anti-virus software should respond, if it doesnt your anti-virus software is not running or responding correctly.
X5O!P%@[REMOVE]AP[4PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$]EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
For more information on the EICAR test file, see http://www.eicar.org/86-0-Intended-use.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EICAR_test_file