You are using an antivirus already but want to make sure if it is really effective. We’ll worry not here’s a quick test to check whether your antivirus can detect what it’s supposed to detect. And you can do so without downloading any stuff or jeopardising your computer. Open up Notepad or another plain text editor (not Word or similar) and paste the following string and save it to your desktop:
X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
Your anti-virus should detect the file as a EICAR test file or similar. If not, update your anti-virus and try again or change your anti-virus.
The above string has been taken from the EICAR test file page where you can read the details about it.
