Is your Antivirus Working Well? OR It's Time To Change It?

Most of us have security software such as an antivirus, antimalware, firewall or Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS) installed to help protect our computer against known or unknown malware. Malicious software can be very sneaky, getting onto your computer when you least expect it and stay hidden until the security software finally detects it. By then, the damage has already been done since the virus has been active and you wouldn’t know what information has been stolen from your computer.

The question is, how do you know if the antivirus or antimalware installed is actually protecting your computer? Well There a process for it. This process is very well known as EICAR Testing, EICAR stands for European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research Collaboration with  CARO (Computer AntiVirus Research Organization) develops the EICAR code to Test the Functionality of AntiVirus without getting Damage to your PC and they have Done it Successfully. So, the Antivirus Programmers Flagged the EICAR code as a Verified Genuine Virus and also it got a Standard for Virus Testing in Various Companies. The EICAR test file can be easily created with a Notepad that starts with the 68 characters below and save it as COM or EXE extension. If the EICAR test file is not being detected, there is something wrong with the antivirus program and you should check the real time protection settings, try reinstalling, or maybe it is a rogue/fake antivirus program. At the time of writing, 49 out of 52 antivirus from Virus Total is able to detect the EICAR antivirus test file.

HOW TO CREATE EICAR TEST FILE?

1. Open Notepad and paste the following code:

    

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

2. Once the Code is pasted into Notepad Just Go to File>Save as And Give File Name with Extension .exe and  Save

3.Finally, the Virus Test file was saved And If Your Antivirus Detect It Then Your Antivirus Is Working Perfectly
But If Your Antivirus Didn't Detect That File Then Its Time To Change Your Antivirus