The purpose of this chart is to compare the range and efficacy of the various mechanisms utilised by various different anti-virus solutions (with particular interest in how well phpMussel holds up against those various different anti-virus solutions in regards to those mechanisms), by way of scanning various permutations of EICAR (the industry standard sample generally used to confirm the functionality and efficacy of anti-virus signatures, signature databases, and the engines that utilise them).

In the context of this chart, "permutations" refers to permutations of the original sample's container (e.g., whether uncontained, contained in a ZIP file, in a GZ file, as an embedded file within a PDF document, etc), but doesn't refer to permutations of the actual original sample itself.

The reason why the chart considers various permutations of EICAR, to the exclusion of any other samples or any other kinds of permutations, is that my interest in writing this chart is not towards signatures or signature databases, but rather, the ability of the anti-virus solutions in question to handle and process files in such a way as to be able to deal with these permutations with their existing signatures, without the need to write additional signatures for each and every permutation.

This is helpful to indicate whether further work needs to be done for an engine to be able to read and understand specific container formats, whether existing mechanisms are sufficient, or whether scanning a file blindly without regard to its format may be acceptable in some instances.

To keep things simple, I'll indicate only whether the scan results in a (✔️)hit (meaning, detected), a (❌)miss (meaning, not detected), or (❓)other (meaning, something went wrong when scanning, the results are generally unavailable at the time, or the results are unknown), without regard to the specific identifiers, virus names, or other information produced as a result the scan.

The beginning of the chart will show phpMussel, since it's my primary interest, followed by ClamAV, since phpMussel's signatures are based upon ClamAV's signatures. All remaining engines will be listed alphabetically.