Methods and tools for checking links and sites for viruses

There is a huge amount of various statistics about the current realities of the World Wide Web. According to some reports, the first half of 2018 accounted for more than 1.8 billion active (!) Websites and more than 3.8 billion active users. Believe this data or not, the question is separate, but it’s not a secret to anyone that the number of websites has already exceeded imaginable and inconceivable numbers. A huge amount of these resources can not be called safe to visit. A few years ago, the owners of sites with malicious content were interested in the fact of infecting a user's computer and the subsequent theft of any data or simple wrecking, now with the development of the mining market, websites that start JavaScript and start using computer resources have started to appear user in their economic interests. In addition, one of the oldest ways to spread viral software is an email with a specific link (via email services or social networks) continues to evolve and find new victims. This article will discuss the methods and tools that allow you to secure your personal data and check the websites you visit and send links for viruses.

Variants of checking sites and links to viruses.

Online

To begin with, it should be understood that far from always third-party virus software located inside a network resource is placed there by the owners of the websites themselves, or at least with their authorization. The vast majority of the 1.8 billion site owners mentioned above are good citizens and are also interested in the purity of their own resources, as are ordinary users. And this fact should be taken into account. So, back to the main issue of the topic. The first ways to check a network resource or link are to use specialized services that conduct self-scanning of the specified products.

"VirusTotal"

This is one of the most well-known verification resources, which use several antiviruses for their work at once. For users on the site //www.virustotal.com three scanning options are offered at once:

  • search by IP address, domain name or hash amount (unique file identifier);
  • search by URL;
  • checking the file with uploading to the VirusTotal server.

Accordingly, there is nothing difficult in checking any website, just the information you know is entered, and VirusTotal itself will check it for compliance with international security standards and provide fairly redundant results.

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A similar service from the giant antivirus industry, Kaspersky Lab, with the same most intuitive interface and actual benefits. To check it is enough to visit the site //virusdesk.kaspersky.ru/ and copy the link or drag the file (or attach it) to the search box, click on the “Check” button. The results are less informative than those of VirusTotal, but this is not required to understand the safety of the subject.

As explained by the developers themselves, VirusDesk uses the same anti-virus databases as any Kaspersky Lab products, so you can trust the results that are issued about the reputation of the checked resource.

Doctor Web

And another worthy representative of the resources under consideration, the developer of which was a well-known company called “Doctor Web”. To check, you should visit the site //vms.drweb.ru/online/?lng=ru and, by analogy with the above steps, enter the data of the resource or file being checked. Unlike the more eminent “KasperskyVirusDesk”, the option with “Doctor Web” provides extended test data, which can be quickly reviewed, as well as saved.

Expansion

Surely, many users have come up against a situation in which, when installing any anti-virus software, it was suggested to install a special browser extension (Google, Opera, Mozilla, etc.). One of the most worthy representatives of the anti-virus software of this functionality is Avast Online Security. This extension is distributed free of charge for browsers using Chromium in its structure and offers, in addition to scanning, protection and phishing and redirectors. This extension does not require any manipulations at all, except for the primary activation. For any search query, next to the result will be a security mark of the final link.

The “Web Of Trust” extension works in a similar way, which itself significantly tarnished its reputation, but subsequently corrected and returned to the extensions directory. It provides the security rating of each search query based on the data of its own anti-virus database and the opinions of real users.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is worth noting one significant detail. Virtually all of the above verification resources scan only one specific page, which does not exclude the presence of malicious software on others. It is always necessary to take into account and in the event of suspicion repeat scanning of a specific page.