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VirusTotal is a website created by the Spanish security company Hispasec Sistemas. Launched in June 2004, it was acquired by Google in September 2012.[1][2][3] The company’s ownership switched in January 2018 to Google Security Operations, a subsidiary of Google.[4]

VirusTotal’s operates by multiscanning. It aggregates many antivirus products and online scan engines[5][6] called Contributors.[7][8] In November, 2018, the Cyber National Mission Force, a unit subordinate to the United States Cyber Command became a Contributor.[9] 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 positives.[10] Files up to 650 MB can be uploaded to the website or up to 32 MB sent via email. Antivirus 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 URLs and search through the VirusTotal dataset. VirusTotal uses the Cuckoo sandbox for dynamic analysis of malware.[11] VirusTotal was selected by PC World as one of the best 100 products of 2007.[12]

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, and NSA employees.[13][14]

API

VirusTotal provides a public API that allows users and organizations to automate the submission of files and URLs for scanning and to retrieve scan reports programmatically.[15] The API is widely used by security researchers, incident responders, and threat intelligence platforms to integrate VirusTotal’s multi-engine scanning capabilities into automated workflows.[16] A free public API tier is available with rate-limited requests, while premium tiers offer higher query limits and access to additional features such as file feed subscriptions, YARA hunting, and relationship graph analysis.[17]

See also

References

  1. ^ Lardinois, Frederic (7 September 2012). “Google Acquires Online Virus, Malware and URL Scanner VirusTotal”. TechCrunch. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
  2. ^ “Google buys cybersecurity startup VirusTotal”. Reuters. 7 September 2012. Retrieved 28 March 2025.
  3. ^ VirusTotal Team (7 September 2012). “An update from VirusTotal”. Blog.virustotal.com. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  4. ^ Cimpanu, Catalin (28 March 2025). “Alphabet launches VirusTotal Enterprise”. ZDNET. Retrieved 28 March 2025.
  5. ^ “Credits & Acknowledgements : About VirusTotal”. VirusTotal. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  6. ^ “Example Report”. Virustotal.com. 2 April 2014. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  7. ^ “Criminal IP Becomes VirusTotal IP and URL Scan Contributor”. Business Insider. 21 November 2023. Retrieved 28 March 2025.
  8. ^ “Contributors”. VirusTotal.
  9. ^ “New CNMF initiative shares malware samples with cybersecurity industry > U.S. Cyber Command > News”. www.cybercom.mil. Retrieved 22 February 2022. {{cite web}}: Check |archive-url= value (help)
  10. ^ “About VirusTotal”. Virustotal.com. Retrieved 3 June 2016. {{cite web}}: Check |archive-url= value (help)
  11. ^ “Credits of VirusTotal”. Virustotal.com. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
  12. ^ Dahl, Eric (21 May 2007). “The 100 Best Products of 2007”. PCWorld. IDG Consumer & SMB. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  13. ^ Jessica, Lyons (21 July 2023). “VirusTotal: We’re sorry someone fat-fingered and exposed 5,600 users”. The Register. Retrieved 28 March 2025.
  14. ^ Martinez, Emiliano (21 July 2023). “Apology and Update on Recent Accidental Data Exposure”. Retrieved 28 March 2025.
  15. ^ “VirusTotal API v3 Overview”. VirusTotal Developer Documentation. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
  16. ^ “How to use the VirusTotal API”. VirusTotal Support. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
  17. ^ “VirusTotal Premium Services”. VirusTotal. Retrieved 14 June 2013.