How To: Cross check your Antivirus

I just came across this tutorial on one of my friend Vicky's blog. He just wrote a tut on how to see whether your antivirus is working properly or not.

Here's how:

1. Open Notepad

2. Now copy the below code in the notepad :

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

Save the file as "virus.exe" with cotes

Now here goes the actual stuff, if your Anti Virus just delete this file immediately as soon as it is created than that means your AV is working properly.

But all of you will are not as Lucky as that, so better scan this file with your AV if it still not delete it than its time to update you AV.

Now the GEEK stuff

The file (in our case virus.exe) that we have created is known as The EICAR test file (official name: EICAR Standard Anti-Virus Test File) is a file, developed by the European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research, to test the response of computer antivirus (AV) programs.

The idea behind this is to allow people, companies, and AV programmers to test their software without having to use a real computer virus that could cause actual damage should the AV not respond correctly. - WikiPedia

Oh so that is for AntiVirus, so is there any such Geeky-Tricky stuff for AntiSpammers too?

Oh you are too curious and a real GEEKY guy if you are still reading till here, so for you, the answer is YES, like the above file you can also check you anti spammer by writing the following piece of code in notepad and saving it as Spam.exe

XJS*C4JDBQADN1.NSBN3*2IDNEN*GTUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-UBE-TEST-EMAIL*C.34X

If your Anti-Spammer immediately detects and delete it than it is working correctly and if not than you know what you have to do!

Now you must be curious to know what's this file called, OK it is The GTUBE (Generic Test for Unsolicited Bulk Email) is a 68-byte test string used to test anti-spam solutions, notably those based on SpamAssassin.

In SpamAssassin, it carries an antispam score of 1000 by default, which would be sufficient to trigger any installation. - WikiPedia

Image Credits:mobilecastle.biz