Eicar Anti Malware Testfile – A signature to test your antivirus

Recently I was experiencing strange file locks on Windows while compiling my tools. Since my company is using anti malware software, my supervisor recommended to use this eicar testfile to check if this might be the problem:

https://www.eicar.org/download-anti-malware-testfile/

What can I say, I created a text file with this content

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

and immediately the anti malware software reported an incident. I did not know something like this existed and thought it might be useful for others.

Have fun.