The success and the acceptance of intrusion detection systems essentially depend on the accuracy of their analysis. Inaccurate signatures strongly trigger false alarms. In practice several thousand false alarms per month are reported which limit the successful deployment of intrusion detection systems. Most today deployed intrusion detection systems apply misuse detec tion as detection procedure. Misuse detection compares the recorded audit data with predefined patterns, the signatures. These are mostly empirically de ve loped based on experience and knowledge of experts. Methods for a systematic de velopment have been scarcely repor ted yet. A testing and correcting phase is required to improve the quality of the signatures. Signature testing is still a rather empirical process like signature development itself. There exists no test methodology so far. In this paper we present first approaches for a systematic test of signatures. We characterize the test objectives and present different test methods.