Ensuring That Your Antivirus Is Functional

What good would it serve you to have the best antivirus firewall software installed on your computer but not having it work? It is crucial that you test your antivirus installation and check that it does work.

An antivirus firewall software program is very important in your computer as it serves as your protector against computer threats. Continuous threat detection is a must to ensure that your system and your personal information is malware free and possible identity theft is very slim. That is why the best antivirus should always be functional to be able to do its task.

After installation, some antiviruses may not automatically detect or scan certain files, so it is best to make sure whether your antivirus does work or not. There may also be times when you just realize that the antivirus that you have been relying on actually stopped working. Checking the functionality of your antivirus program is quick and easy. Read on for tips on how to check.

The European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research (EICAR) has set a standard way for testing the functionality of any antivirus software product. The process requires the creation of a dummy virus, which is not an actual virus. It just contains a string of characters that, when examined by an antivirus program, will be detected as a real virus.

To create the dummy virus file (called the EICAR anti-malware test file), you need to open your favorite text editor. Yes, the test file is in plain text. Use Notepad or some other text editor. Copy and paste the following string of characters: X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H* into your new text file, making sure you don't insert additional characters, spaces, or line breaks into the string. Save the file not as plain text. Instead, try a different extension such as COM or EXE. Most antiviruses exclude plain text files in scanning for viruses, so it is important that you save the test file with a different file extension.

If your antivirus has real-time protection enabled, it should be able to automatically detect this dummy virus. But, in case you disabled the real time protection of your antivirus, then manually run a scan for this specific file. You will know that your antivirus program is working if it detects the EICAR anti-malware test file.

Source: http://goo.gl/xfCtV