I want to test a virus scanner, but I don't want to have actual malware stored on my machine. In the past, I've seen innocuous software marked as a virus by vague "heuristics" from anti-malware programs. I want to write a program that is not in any way malware, but is likely to be viewed as malware by typical, reasonable antivirus software. How would I begin? Any common programming language is fine.
The usual answer is to use Eicar from https://www.eicar.org/?page_id=3950