At VirusTotal, we’re constantly exploring new ways to make threat intelligence more digestible and available to a wider audience. Our latest effort leverages the power of AI to create easily understood audio discussions from technical information. Using Google NotebookLM’s innovative…
Tag: VirusTotal Blog
VirusTotal AI-Generated Conversations: Threat Intel Made Easy
At VirusTotal, we’re constantly exploring new ways to make threat intelligence more digestible and available to a wider audience. Our latest effort leverages the power of AI to create easily understood audio discussions from technical information. Using Google NotebookLM’s innovative…
Leveraging LLMs for Malware Analysis: Insights and Future Directions
By Gerardo Fernández, Joseliyo Sánchez and Vicente Díaz Malware analysis is (probably) the most expert-demanding and time-consuming activity for any security professional. Unfortunately automation for static analysis has always been challenging for the security industry. The sheer volume and complexity…
Exploring the VirusTotal Dataset | An Analyst’s Guide to Effective Threat Research
By Aleksandar Milenkoski (SentinelOne) and Jose Luis Sánchez Martínez VirusTotal stores a vast collection of files, URLs, domains, and IPs submitted by users worldwide. It features a variety of functionalities and integrates third-party detection engines and tools to analyze the…
VirusTotal += Huorong
We welcome Huorong anti-malware engine to VirusTotal. In the words of the company: “Huorong is a Chinese information security company founded in 2011, which has been committed to the research and development of endpoint security products. Huorong anti-malware engine utilizes…
We Made It, Together: 20 Years of VirusTotal!
Hi Everyone, We can hardly believe it, but VirusTotal is turning 20 on June 1st! As we sit down to write this, we’re filled with a mix of pride and gratitude. It’s been an incredible journey, and we wouldn’t be…
Tracking Threat Actors Using Images and Artifacts
When tracking adversaries, we commonly focus on the malware they employ in the final stages of the kill chain and infrastructure, often overlooking samples used in the initial ones. In this post, we will explore some ideas to track adversary…
YARA is dead, long live YARA-X
For over 15 years, YARA has been growing and evolving until it became an indispensable tool in every malware researcher’s toolbox. Throughout this time YARA has seen numerous updates, with new features added and countless bugs fixed. But today, I’m…
YARA is dead, long live YARA-X
For over 15 years, YARA has been growing and evolving until it became an indispensable tool in every malware researcher’s toolbox. Throughout this time YARA has seen numerous updates, with new features added and countless bugs fixed. But today, I’m…
Crowdsourced AI += ByteDefend
We are pleased to announce the integration of a new solution into our Crowdsourced AI initiative. This model, developed by Dr. Ran Dubin from the Department of Computer Science at Ariel University and head of ByteDefend Cyber Lab at the…
Crowdsourced AI += ByteDefend
We are pleased to announce the integration of a new solution into our Crowdsourced AI initiative. This model, developed by Dr. Ran Dubin from the Department of Computer Science at Ariel University and head of ByteDefend Cyber Lab at the…
VirusTotal’s Mission Continues: Sharing Knowledge, Protecting Together
With the recent announcement of Google Threat Intelligence, I want to take this opportunity, as VirusTotal’s founder, to directly address our community and reiterate our unwavering commitment to our core mission. First and foremost, I want to assure our entire…
VirusTotal’s Mission Continues: Sharing Knowledge, Protecting Together
With the recent announcement of Google Threat Intelligence, I want to take this opportunity, as VirusTotal’s founder, to directly address our community and reiterate our unwavering commitment to our core mission. . First and foremost, I want to assure our…
Analyzing Malware in Binaries and Executables with AI
In a recent post titled “From Assistant to Analyst: The Power of Gemini 1.5 Pro for Malware Analysis”, published on the Google Cloud Security blog, we explore the capabilities of Gemini 1.5 Pro, which enhances malware analysis by processing up…
Mastering VirusTotal: Certification Course
We are pleased to announce the partnership with The SOC Academy, a new startup dedicated to providing cybersecurity education, debuting with a VirusTotal Certification course. Founded by Laura, a passionate entrepreneur and especially a cybersecurity enthusiast, The SOC Academy aims…
Know your enemies: An approach for CTI teams
VirusTotal’s Threat Landscape can be a valuable source of operational and tactical threat intelligence for CTI teams, for instance helping us find the latest malware trends used by a given Threat Actor to adjust our intelligence-led security posture accordingly. In…
COM Objects Hijacking
The COM Hijacking technique is often utilized by threat actors and various malware families to achieve both persistence and privilege escalation in target systems. It relies on manipulating Component Object Model (COM), exploiting the core architecture of Windows that enables…
Following MITRE’s footsteps in analyzing malware behavior
The MITRE framework helps all defenders speak the same language regarding attackers’ modus operandi. VirusTotal provides multiple data points where MITRE’s Tactics and Techniques are dynamically extracted from samples when detonated in our sandboxes. In particular, samples’ MITRE mapping can…
Following MITRE’s footsteps in analyzing malware behavior
The MITRE framework helps all defenders speak the same language regarding attackers’ modus operandi. VirusTotal provides multiple data points where MITRE’s Tactics and Techniques are dynamically extracted from samples when detonated in our sandboxes. In particular, samples’ MITRE mapping can…
Following in Mitre’s footsteps and malware behavior
The MITRE framework helps all defenders speak the same language regarding attackers’ modus operandi. VirusTotal provides multiple data points where MITRE’s Tactics and Techniques are dynamically extracted from samples when detonated in our sandboxes. In particular, samples’ MITRE mapping can…
VT Livehunt Cheat Sheet
Today we are happy to announce the release of our “Livehunt Cheat Sheet”, a guide to help you quickly implement monitoring rules in Livehunt. You can find the PDF version here. VirusTotal Livehunt is a service that continuously scans all…
Uncovering Hidden Threats with VirusTotal Code Insight
In the constantly changing world of cybersecurity, generative AI is becoming an increasingly valuable tool. This blog post shows various examples that elude traditional detection engines yet are adeptly unveiled by Code Insight. We explore diverse scenarios, ranging from firmware…
Monitoring malware trends with VT Intelligence
Please note that this blogpost is part of our #VTMondays series, check out our collection of past publications here. VT Intelligence can be a powerful tool for monitoring malware trends, enhancing your detection capabilities and enabling proactive defense against evolving…
Hunting for malicious domains with VT Intelligence
Please note that this blogpost is part of our #VTMondays series, check out our collection of past publications here. Many cyberattacks begin by victims visiting compromised websites that host malware or phishing scams, threat actors use domains for different malicious…
Sigma rules for Linux and MacOS
TLDR: VT Crowdsourced Sigma rules will now also match suspicious activity for macOS and Linux binaries, in addition to Windows. We recently discussed how to maximize the value of Sigma rules by easily converting them to YARA Livehunts. Unfortunately, at…
Protecting the perimeter with VT Intelligence – malicious URLs
Please note that this blogpost is part of our #VTMondays series, check out our collection of past publications here. One of the main attacking vectors attackers use for credential theft and malware deployment are malicious link-based attacks leveraging impersonated websites…
VTMondays
Welcome to VTMondays! A weekly series of bite-sized educational pills exploring the use of VirusTotal in real-world scenarios. Here’s what you’ll get: Short lessons: VTMondays are packed with valuable info in under 5 minutes read. Real-world scenarios: We’re not talking…
Protecting the perimeter with VT Intelligence – Email security
Please note that this blogpost is part of our #VTMondays series, check out our collection of past publications here. One of the most common attack vectors to gain access to your network is through phishing emails with attachments containing malware,…
How AI is shaping malware analysis
We just released our “Empowering Defenders: How AI is shaping malware analysis” report, where we want to share VirusTotal’s visibility to help researchers, security practitioners and the general public better understand the nature of malicious attacks, this time focusing on…
Actionable Threat Intel (VI) – A day in a Threat Hunter’s life
Kaspersky’s CTI analysts recently released their Asian APT groups report, including details on behavior by different adversaries. Following our series on making third-party intelligence actionable using VirusTotal Intelligence, we have put on our threat hunter’s hat to find samples and…
The definitive VirusTotal’s admin guide
VirusTotal administrators’ tasks are key for the good health of the groups they manage. Unfortunately it is not always clear the best way to do this or that task. But we heard our beloved community, and we created the definitive…
Unifying threat context with VirusTotal connectors
In an age where cyber threats continue to grow in sophistication and frequency, the pursuit of a unified threat contextualization platform is no longer a mere convenience but an absolute necessity. When faced with an unfamiliar file, hash, domain, IP…
It’s all about the structure! Creating YARA rules by clicking
Since we made our (extended) vt module available for LiveHunt YARA rules we understand it is not easy for analysts to keep in mind all the new potential possibilities – too many of them! Our goal is to make YARA…