What is Digg?142 Comments
- MattS, on 10/12/2007, -9/+44Was new to me... Guess I'm lame.
- thepharmacist, on 10/12/2007, -8/+28< sarcasm >
Yes, every1, 0f c0urs3.
< / sarcasm >
I thought no one still used that way of spelling outside of a joke. - Zero456, on 10/12/2007, -8/+22I've looking for something like this for a long time, excellent find.
- TheThirdWheel, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19I'm confused; if my virus protection software alerts me to the fact that there is a virus on my computer when it is a harmless text file.....that means it's working?
- hello2usir, on 10/12/2007, -7/+20The average person won't know about this.
But if this is news to you and you're in the IT security field, you should probably find another career. - Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Think of it as the 'test' button on the side of your smoke alarm.
- chaosmachine, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13indeed, the EICAR test file was introduced in the early 90s.
- zenscope, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14would you fall for a wiki entry?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eicar_test_file - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12It's been done.
- eastshores, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"Maybe tomorrow they'll teach everyone a cool new trick for detecting whether a server is up on the net by using this nifty "ping" thing!"
I once had to learn what that ping thing did, then what it meant, then I learned the basics of TCP, then IP... then the 7 OSI layers. This was a long time ago and I think it is absurb to think kids today just inherently know these things. Because of further abstraction from underlying technology, it is harder for kids to learn about important concepts today. - crythias, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14X5O!P%@AP[4PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
- Logan, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12Maybe, if you were to present your sarcasm in a polite and respectfull way, instead of what appears to be trolling, people would be more inclined to use it. You notice how most people here are using punctuation and capital letters? Good, follow their example.
- heavyd14, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7But who reads the documentation?
- koorb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6If your AV doesn't catch this as a virus then it isn't working.
- hypnotizd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8"Then save the text as a .COM file (any name will do, like eicar.com)."
Just saving as test.txt NAV2006 recognized the string and auto deleted. I now feel safe knowing that I'm protected against test viruses! - dipswitch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Make sure you don't accidentally paste the string into your thesis then
- Recluse, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Damn my anti-virus caught it right after renamed it to .com. I didn't even have the chance to right click it.
- PCDirect, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5While I am not in the IT field, I do work for a PC shop and I have never heard of this simple test.
Why is every1 [/sarcasm] so quick to jump and shout that hey know everything and we are stupid! How about some class 4TOM
I am running Vista Beta with CA eTrust. I created a new text file on my desktop, opened it, copied the text, attempted to save the file and eTrust quarantined the file immediately. - surfing, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10I wouldn't trust a wikipedia article by itself.
- kc0re, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Nachi Worm was similar
- xswag, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8If its new to some people then its a great front page story.
- kbeeveer46, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4NOD 32 caught it as soon as I hit CTRL + S and it was still a text file.
- MikeN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4You can find more information at the EICAR (European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research) Website:
http://www.eicar.org/
http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm - foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I got Norton Anti-Virus from Sony as Bloatware. iver been using it free of charge since
- galahan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Nod32 caught it as soon as I saved the file.
- Logan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Well, you are allowed to edit, but the time system is a little wonky. Refresh a couple times until it says you posted it in the last three minutes and you can edit.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Uh... Or you could just take a look at the string. It's no more a virus than typing some random characters into your text editor and saving it.
- spacebar14, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I renamed it to "eicar.com_" so Gmail would let me send it (it blocks executables).
After clicking send, a big red warning came up "Your file contains a virus, please remove it"
Lol. - SmartITGuy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Complete no-brainer for Avast! It even detected it embedded or compressed into RAR, IMA, ISO and obviously ZIP files.
Tried it on 2 other (different) systems, one with Norton and one with McAfee. Basically both systems became unusable while both programs hogged up sooooooooo much CPU horsepower to scan and react to the string. Norton/Symantec & McAfee suck! I have had to (softwarically) FIX many computers brought to their knees and ruined by Norton/Symantec and McAfee installations.
I used AVG before but was not impressed. In a system with 'shared' Video RAM (where the graphics/video card uses system memory instead of its own onboard memory) ...AVG considered the act of the video card trying to access system memory as a system violation, so it would not allow the card more memory to go beyond 640x480 @16 colors. As soon as I uninstalled AVG the graphics card worked normal.
I always end up putting in Avast! I swear by it and will never use or recommend any other program. I like it so much I bought the Server and Professional versions for the company. In the 5 years I've used it I've never ever had any virus or bad interaction with other programs. And it does not hog system resources. I would rather TRUST and use the free Avast Home edition on a computer than anything you can buy in a store. (It's even a thoughtful program... During the Christmas/holiday season, it even popped up a "Seasons Greetings/Happy Holidays" message in one of the display baloons by the system tray.)
...Did I mention I ike Avast?... - jwigum, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Same with AVG Free.
- apache2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3viruses? newbs
- ThatsUnpossible, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I would think the test would if it's new to MOST people... jeez otherwise digg is going to blow.
- koorb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Yes.
By your AV telling you this harmless file is a virus, it confirms that your AV is working without you actually having to endanger your system. - fr34k5h0w, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Once or twice, yeah...
- blay, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Unfortunatly, not everyone has "safe" surfing habits... take my girlfriends family for example, I reformat their pc next to me as I type this. :)
- blay, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Running NOD32 here and after creating the new text file and trying to paste the string into it, NOD caught it right away... guess it's (NOD32) not too bad after all.
- PhantomaZero, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Avast caught it 2 seconds upon saving the file, excellent.
- M2Ys4U, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wikipedia articles have a nice little section at the bottom with sources, so, as long as you varify the sources collaborate with the wiki article (and you trust the sources) you're good to go.
- sixister, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Scary.... after I just got off the phone with Symantec, having them tell me there wasn't really a way to test my mail a-v. Muwahaha.
- Tobey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Avast wouldn't let me save it as a .COM (it just kept deleting the file). So I just saved it as a .txt file and tried to email it to myself through Gmail. But I couldn't even do that, it just said "One of your attachments contained a virus and could not be sent.".
Well, I guess I'm safe. - mydiggname, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My AVG didn't catch it when I scanned it. Did I do something wrong? I pasted that text into a file and saved it as .COM...and nothing...:S
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You install an antivirus package, run it and uninstall it every couple of months... and everyone ELSE is paranoid?!
You ever heard of disabling your software? Seems like an uninstall/reinstall is a bit overkill. - MrCoke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1if its a harmless file, and the AV didnt pick it up that means the AV is working correctly, you want it to pick up harmfull files, not the harmless ones......... think about it.
- broken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You should really be looking at the On-demand tests, not the restrospective tests.
Oh and "Please link ONLY to our main site www.av-comparatives.org and not to the other subpages.
It's forbidden to use/provide our test results/documents on other sites without our permission.
If you find anything on other sites, please inform the forum/site admin to remove it." - rouben, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What's truly unfortunate is that the EICAR test will only test if your virus detection engine is theoretically capable of recognizing certain patterns in files (such as virus infections in files). Unfortunately, the EICAR test won't be able to confirm or deny the actual affectiveness of an antivirus program, like its ability to detect fresh viruses, for example... and we all know how useless an outdated antivirus can be, even if it can detect and "neutralize" the EICAR file.
- thegreatsam, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Very cool. ++Digg
- LEDDY, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1this is wicked, symantec antivirus, picked it up soon as i saved it.
- xeres, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1so this string was deliberately selected by the industry and then included in all AntiVirus programs ?
- chaosmachine, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3documentation is for those who don't need to call tech support to have it read to them..
- Thorpe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, at least now we know Google had theirs up-to-date.
-
Show 51 - 100 of 143 discussions
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is