Malware Scans – Multiple Engines, Online Scanners

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Caution: Before you download any program or run any online scan, please take two minutes to verify the legitimacy and credibility of the tool. How to do this? Look for third party certifications like CNET.Com (Download.Com) or SoftPedia.Com’s certificate, etc. This will give you little more confidence about the program you are going to use. If the site gives you a reference to the awards that the tool received, then please go that page and read. The effort and time is well worth. I recommend you to do the same even to the sites listed in this page. Most importantly backup your important data before you do anything.

As you might have understood that there is no ONE solution that fits all problems. I want to show you a way so that you can be extra cautious if necessary. For example you received a file that you feel is important, and you are suspicious about the file content. You ran virus scan with your existing tool, did not show any thing. You are still suspicious, what now? In this case what are the options? This is the right page you are in. You have two options.

Option one – scan single file with multiple malware scan engines: You can choose to upload the file to one of the following sites and run the scan against various malware engines at the same time for free. So here are some of the links.

First of all why do you need to scan with multiple engines? The best answer is there is no single technology that fits single solution. Second not all engines detect all malware. If one engine misses, then the other can detect it. That is why one antimalware engine is not sufficient to protect your computer. See the result below. I uploaded a legitimate file (Remote desktop access tool Tight VNC) that I know is good. But still some vendors gave the result ‘false positive’. In this case I should use my commonsense to use the file or not. Out of 38 malware scan engines, 4 engines raised ‘false positive’ from ViruaTotal.Com. And I am glad that two of them said ‘not a virus, remote admin tool’. Please note that two vendors have the same name for the same malware, confusing the common user further.

The following screen shot is from Jotti.Org web site for the same file, again raising 4 ‘false positives’ out of 22 malware scan engines. Here also I am glad that two of them said ‘not a virus, remote admin tool’

Here are the links for the free Multiple Antimalware (antivirus) scanners. There are many other sites exist, but I found these two are good.

Note: The following sites have file size limit that they accept to scan.

• Jotti.Org
• VirusTotal.Com
• Virus.Org
• VirScan.Org
• VirusChief.Com
• Filterbit.Com

Option two – online scanning your computer: You think that you have some virus in your computer, you scanned your computer with you existing software, found something or nothing. Or you have a big exe file or archive file that you can not upload for scanning. In that case would not it be nice to have scanned with several antimalware tools on your computer one by one? For example TrendMicro would discover some virus, Kaspersky Labs would find some more, finally you can get all the benefits for free again.

Free Online Scanners, most of them require IE recent version and some do not clean the infected files.

• Trend Micro House Call. This site has free secure email tool.
• Kaspersky Lab
• Norton (Symantec) – It is a downloadable tool where you can download the scanner and scans for free every week. Try this, very good.
• E-Set
• McAfee
• Zone Labs
• GFI Trojan Scanner. This site contains many other useful tools.
  
• Prevx CSI Free scan. You can upload your log file to their site for further analysis. Their response is very fast and good, my personal experience. Visit their site for more description.
• Norman SandBox Information site. Norman Sandbox site differs from the above as this would analyze the contents of your uploaded file for malware. Very good site to learn more about a malware that is bothering you.

Other related resources:

• Spyware links, really lots of links. You may not need all of them.
• Real time current virus alerts (from many vendors, very useful)
• Self- help Malware removal instructions.
• Antivirus tools comparison sites
  • AV-Comparatives.Org
  • Virus Bulletin
• HijackThis is a tool from TrendMicro, which scans several important and critical areas (mostly accessed by malware programs) of your computer for malware and create a log file for further analysis. You can use this log to detect any issues with your computer. The best way to solve your problem is to upload your log file to HijackThis.De site for further analysis. Please remember that you will have to take further action to secure your PC unlike malware tools. HijackThis is only analysis tool, not a removal tool. There are several forums that you can take help to further analyze your log file.
• Most importantly install ThreatFire a free Zero-Day threat detection based on malware behavior pattern. This will help your existing AV tool to increase the detection rates. Visit their site to learn more.
• HiJackfree is a free tool for advanced users who wants to scan their computer for any kind of malware – virus, spyware, worm, Trojan, etc, with no live protection. A 2 MB file is good tool to be in your sec tools box.
• A very good web site MDGX.Com with several links on Malware and its removal tools. Also check their other pages for very interesting information.
• I really did not understand the intension of this page. This web page contains so many links on antimalware tools even I took some time to understand the intension of the page. Please visit the site if you have courage and want to get something out of this page.

Additional References:

• List of 40 Malware free scan engines
• Dancho Danchev article Multiple Malware Scans

Have fun!

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