virustotal security scanner

VirusTotal Scanner Skill

Interact with VirusTotal API using either standard system tools (curl) or Python utilities.

Setup

1. Get your API key: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/user/[your-username]/apikey
2. Set the environment variable:

   export VT_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"
   

Privacy Warning

CRITICAL: This skill involves sending data to VirusTotal, a public threat intelligence service.

1. Never upload files without explicit user consent.
2. Do not include PII (Personally Identifiable Information) in comments or descriptions.
3. Warn the user that uploaded files are shared with the security community and can be downloaded by other researchers.

Best Practices: Caching Results

To avoid unnecessary API calls and stay within rate limits, it is recommended to cache the JSON results locally. Use ~/.vt/ to store these reports.

# Create cache directory
mkdir -p ~/.vt

# Save a report to cache
HASH="your-file-hash"
curl --request GET \
     --url "https://www.virustotal.com/api/v3/files/$HASH" \
     --header "accept: application/json" \
     --header "x-apikey: $VT_API_KEY" > ~/.vt/$HASH.json

# Query the cache instead of the API (if jq available)
cat ~/.vt/$HASH.json | jq '.data.attributes.last_analysis_stats'

Usage: Curl (Standard and use it by default)

1. Hash a file (Required for checks)

Calculate the SHA256 hash of a file to check if it exists in VirusTotal.

# Linux
sha256sum /path/to/file

# MacOS
shasum -a 256 /path/to/file

# Windows (PowerShell)
Get-FileHash /path/to/file -Algorithm SHA256

2. Check File Report

Check if a file hash is already known to VirusTotal.

curl --request GET \
     --url "https://www.virustotal.com/api/v3/files/{hash}" \
     --header "accept: application/json" \
     --header "x-apikey: $VT_API_KEY"

3. Upload File

Privacy Note: Only upload files if you have the user's explicit permission.

Small Files (< 32MB)

curl --request POST \
     --url "https://www.virustotal.com/api/v3/files" \
     --header "accept: application/json" \
     --header "x-apikey: $VT_API_KEY" \
     --form "file=@/path/to/file"

Large Files (> 32MB)

First, get a unique upload URL:

curl --request GET \
     --url "https://www.virustotal.com/api/v3/files/upload_url" \
     --header "accept: application/json" \
     --header "x-apikey: $VT_API_KEY"

Then upload to that URL:

curl --request POST \
     --url "{upload_url_from_previous_step}" \
     --header "accept: application/json" \
     --header "x-apikey: $VT_API_KEY" \
     --form "file=@/path/to/large_file"

4. File Comments

Privacy Warning: Do NOT include PII (Personally Identifiable Information) or sensitive data in comments. Context about the file origin or downloader is useful.

Get Comments

curl --request GET \
     --url "https://www.virustotal.com/api/v3/files/{hash}/comments?limit=10" \
     --header "accept: application/json" \
     --header "x-apikey: $VT_API_KEY"

Add Comment

curl --request POST \
     --url "https://www.virustotal.com/api/v3/files/{hash}/comments" \
     --header "accept: application/json" \
     --header "content-type: application/json" \
     --header "x-apikey: $VT_API_KEY" \
     --data '{"data": {"type": "comment", "attributes": {"text": "File found in /tmp directory via downloader script."}}}'

5. URL Scanning

Scan a URL

curl --request POST \
     --url "https://www.virustotal.com/api/v3/urls" \
     --header "accept: application/json" \
     --header "content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
     --header "x-apikey: $VT_API_KEY" \
     --data "url={url_to_analyze}"

Get URL Report

Note: The ID for a URL is usually its SHA256 hash.

curl --request GET \
     --url "https://www.virustotal.com/api/v3/urls/{url_id_or_hash}" \
     --header "accept: application/json" \
     --header "x-apikey: $VT_API_KEY"

Usage: Python Utilities

If system libraries are missing or you prefer Python, use the provided helper scripts.

Install Requirements

pip install requests

1. Calculate Hash

python3 vt-scanner/calc_hash.py /path/to/file

2. API Client (vt_client.py)

This script wraps the API endpoints for easier usage.

Check File

python3 vt-scanner/vt_client.py check-file {hash}

Upload File

Handles both small and large file upload flows automatically.

python3 vt-scanner/vt_client.py upload-file /path/to/file

Get Comments

# For a file
python3 vt-scanner/vt_client.py get-comments {file_hash}

# For a URL
python3 vt-scanner/vt_client.py get-comments {url_id} --url

Add Comment

python3 vt-scanner/vt_client.py add-comment {id} "Your comment here"

Scan URL

python3 vt-scanner/vt_client.py scan-url "http://example.com"

Check URL Report

python3 vt-scanner/vt_client.py check-url {url_id}