Researchers: Abuse of VirusTotal scanners exposes data

Recently, security analysts at Israeli network security company OTORIO found that companies abused VirusTotal, an anti-virus software of Alphabet, to scan documents, leading to the release of important data such as factory blueprints and intellectual property. Most of these documents are unprotected and the categories cover the pharmaceutical, industrial, automotive and food industries.

VirusTotal is an anti-virus software that helps users scan and identify malware in documents. To improve malware detection, the team will also be open to the relevant network security companies and researchers to obtain scanned files and the study. OTORIO CEO Daniel Bren found that some researchers used the service to abuse data in documents.

OTORIO informed VirusTotal of its findings in July, and the company subsequently acknowledged and agreed on the need to discuss these issues. Subsequently, the representative of VirusTotal said that the company would carefully review before granting the customer access information, the researchers did not have the right to search the file library, and if they were found to abuse the data, they would be delisted.

Via: Bloomberg