Information, Computer and Network Security Terms Glossary and Dictionary

EICAR: European Institute of Computer Anti-Virus Research

European Institute of Computer Anti-Virus Research (EICAR), founded in 1990, is an organization aiming to further antivirus research and improving development of antivirus software. EICAR has furthered their scope to include the research of malicious software (malware) other than computer viruses. They are perhaps most notable for the Eicar test file, an innocent, executable string, designed to test the integrity of antivirus software. Its use can be more versatile than straightforward detection, for example, a file containing the Eicar test string can be compressed, and then the antivirus software can be run to see whether it can detect the test string in the compressed file.

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EICAR: European Institute of Computer Anti-Virus Research