Anyone running on Microsoft Windows on his computer most likely has installed any free or paid anti-virus software to safeguard against the Millions of online or offline threats to harm their computers. However what exactly is important to know that if the anti-virus software installed on your computer is really capable of detecting the virus and is working fine.
Also in another case a software developer might also need to test if their software utility is able to detect and delete virus without actually installing a harmful virus onto their systems. Therefore EICAR created a small code that works a like virus however not harmful and is only used to test the anti-virus softwares.
The small code created by EICAR read like:
X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
And to put your anti-virus into test you would need to create a file containing this code. The easiest way to do that is to open your notepad and copy/paste this code into it and save it. And Once you click on the file that should trigger your anti-virus to popup a window altering you of a virus on your computer. That’s it. This is helpful both for Computer users and Software developers who need to test their anti-virus softwares. More details can be found at EICAR’s Wikipedia page.