VirusTotal is a

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

created by the Spanish security

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...

Hispasec Sistemas. Launched in June 2004, it was acquired by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

in September 2012. The company's ownership switched in January 2018 to

Chronicle A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events ...

, a subsidiary of

. VirusTotal's modus operandi is multiscanning. It aggregates many

antivirus Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name ...

products and online scan

engines An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

called Contributors. In November, 2018, the Cyber National Mission Force, a unit subordinate to the U.S. Cyber Command became a Contributor. The aggregated data from these Contributors allows a user to check for viruses that the user's own antivirus software may have missed, or to verify against any

false positive A false positive is an error in binary classification in which a test result incorrectly indicates the presence of a condition (such as a disease when the disease is not present), while a false negative is the opposite error, where the test resu ...

s. Files up to 650 MB can be uploaded to the website, or sent via email (max. 32MB). Anti-virus software vendors can receive copies of files that were flagged by other scans but passed by their own engine, to help improve their software and, by extension, VirusTotal's own capability. Users can also scan suspect

URL A uniform resource locator (URL), colloquially known as an address on the Web, is a reference to a resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identi ...

s and search through the VirusTotal dataset. VirusTotal uses the Cuckoo

sandbox A sandbox is a sandpit, a wide, shallow playground construction to hold sand, often made of wood or plastic. Sandbox or sand box may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Sandbox (band), a Canadian rock music group * Sandbox (Gu ...

for dynamic analysis of

malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

. VirusTotal was selected by ''

PC World ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online-only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tec ...

'' as one of the best 100 products of 2007. On July 2023, VirusTotal issued an apology after one of its staff unintentionally exposed the private information belonging to 5,600 VirusTotal's customers, including the email addresses of US Cyber Command,

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

, and NSA employees.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Virustotal Antivirus software Freeware Google acquisitions Internet properties established in 2004 2012 mergers and acquisitions

See also

References

External links