How to test if your antivirus is working
Most of the time we just install the antivirus or the anti Malware programs and relax that they are working fine and one fine morning you see things not working and finally you realize that its your antivirus program which was not working at all. Here is a small test which you can do in case you are not sure if your antivirus program is working fine or not.
#1 Open Notepad and paste this string into it:
X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
#2 Save it and as soon as you do your antivirus real time protection should be able to detect it. In case you have disabled the real time protection run a scan for this file.
This file actually is a dummy virus which simulates like a virus which 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!”). You can read more on this at EICAR Antivirus Test File.
