EICAR testing of AV software

Hi All,

I was reading an AVG8 document and it listed this site as a good test for AV software that is totally safe. It emulates a virus but is not actually a virus. I went to the site and tried to download the test file after reading a little further and ESS blocked it immediately. I tried the other 3 files in different formats with the same result. Awesome! Any other good sites like this one to test with (non-live virus files of course!)?

http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm

I wanted to post this because I have seen several posts that question the behavior of the AV engine in ESS3... I am good and hope this helps others.

 

http://www.spycar.org/Welcome to Spycar.html
Along the same lines as EICAR but it is meant to test anti-spyware.It tests for stuff like browser hi-jacks, registry changes, start-up's etc.

 

EICAR tests are well known but what they actually check is if your web protection and on-access protections are enabled and performing scanning . It doesn't check effectiveness of the scanner nor something else . This is very basic test.

Another one is Trojan Simulator , also detected by ESET (as potentially unwanted appl.)
http://www.misec.net/trojansimulator/

 

As Hitech boy pointed out its just to check out Antivirus is functioning and nothing more.Even the least effective antivirus should detectect eicar the well known test file.In the real world its the clever unknown threats we need to worry about.