VirusTotal

---

title: "VirusTotal" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["antivirus-software", "freeware", "google-acquisitions", "internet-properties-established-in-2004", "2012-mergers-and-acquisitions"] description: "Cybersecurity website owned by Chronicle" topic_path: "general/antivirus-software" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirusTotal" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Cybersecurity website owned by Chronicle ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox website"]

Field	Value
name	VirusTotal
logo	VirusTotal logo.svg
screenshot	VirusTotal Screenshot.jpg
url
commercial	No
type	Internet security, file and URL analyzer
registration	Optional
language	Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (US), English (GB), Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
author	Hispasec Sistemas
launch_date
current_status	Active
location	Málaga
country	Spain
key_people	Bernardo Quintero, Emiliano Martínez, Víctor Manuel Álvarez, Karl Hiramoto, Julio Canto, Alejandro Bermúdez, Juan A. Infantes
area_served	Worldwide
parent	{{unbulleted list
GM	Bernardo Quintero
::

| name = VirusTotal | logo = VirusTotal logo.svg | screenshot = VirusTotal Screenshot.jpg | url = | commercial = No | type = Internet security, file and URL analyzer | registration = Optional | language = Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (US), English (GB), Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese | author = Hispasec Sistemas | launch_date = | revenue = | current_status = Active | location = Málaga | country = Spain | key_people = Bernardo Quintero, Emiliano Martínez, Víctor Manuel Álvarez, Karl Hiramoto, Julio Canto, Alejandro Bermúdez, Juan A. Infantes | area_served = Worldwide | parent = {{unbulleted list|

• Google LLC (2012–2018)
• Chronicle (2018–present) | GM = Bernardo Quintero

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

VirusTotal's modus operandi is multiscanning. It aggregates many antivirus products and online scan engines called Contributors. In November, 2018, the Cyber National Mission Force, a unit subordinate to the U.S. Cyber Command became a Contributor. 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. 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. VirusTotal was selected by PC World as one of the best 100 products of 2007.

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.

References

References

1. Lardinois, Frederic. (September 7, 2012). "Google Acquires Online Virus, Malware and URL Scanner VirusTotal". [[TechCrunch]].
2. (2012-09-07). "Google buys cybersecurity startup VirusTotal". Reuters.
3. VirusTotal Team. (7 September 2012). "An update from VirusTotal". Blog.virustotal.com.
4. Cimpanu, Catalin. (2025-03-28). "Alphabet launches VirusTotal Enterprise".
5. "Credits & Acknowledgements : About VirusTotal". VirusTotal.
6. (2 April 2014). "Example Report". Virustotal.com.
7. (2023-11-21). "Criminal IP Becomes VirusTotal IP and URL Scan Contributor".
8. "Contributors".
9. "New CNMF initiative shares malware samples with cybersecurity industry > U.S. Cyber Command > News".
10. "About VirusTotal". Virustotal.com.
11. "Credits of VirusTotal". Virustotal.com.
12. (May 21, 2007). "The 100 Best Products of 2007". IDG Consumer & SMB.
13. Jessica, Lyons. (2023-07-21). "VirusTotal: We're sorry someone fat-fingered and exposed 5,600 users".
14. Martinez, Emiliano. (2023-07-21). "Apology and Update on Recent Accidental Data Exposure".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::