Antivirus Software to be tested safely using EICARgen
Antivirus Software does work always, does monitoring of the file that is for access for any threats that are potential. But the thing that is to be known is how it works. EICARgen does make you understand how it is done.
This small freebie does have a small work : to generate test file that is on demand known as EICAR Anti Virus. It is to be noted that EICAR is not a virus or a code that is to be executed. So you can be sure that it cannot bring any harm to your system in any way. But it is to be known that all antivirus programs should detect it as a threat and thus making it important for testing.
EICAR is easier to work when shortcut is available. It is basically a console tool based. You can easily download it and unzip it. It can be configured it like this only.
You can create shortcut by right clicking on the icon and click on the properties. Double click on the icon and wait for it to start. On a Nortan enabled PC, you could get message as eicar.zip but there would be no response for security. This would not be usual as most tools that are used for antivirus do limit their archive that is used for scanning for performance reasons.
If the same happens for you too, you could right click on the eicar.zip and select extract. Nortan would test the file, detect and then raise an alert. Once you have completed the test, you need to replace the zip file with xls shortcut inorder to create a new spreadsheet. Then check how it responds overall.
The PDF file that is tested is more interesting as it should not be detected by itself. Instead it shows an important message and use an embedded script to create an EICAR file whenever it is clicked inside a rectangle. This is created without any mistake on the PC that is used for testing. Once PDF is loaded, Norton gets uploaded as we click on it. This could be useful when we are testing for security on PDF enabled devices or platforms.
EICAR is considered to an interesting and an important tool for testing antivirus software. You just need to be careful on how you need to deal with it. The test files in EICAR is basically harmless. But when you send mail to someone with a copy of EICAR.zip file, it raised an alert which they do not realize it. You need to make sure that if you plan to share the files, you must know what you are doing actually before you actually do it.