Malicious URL Scanner API Guide
In a nutshell, our malware scanner API helps developers build robust web pages that can detect phishing and malware risks. These include detecting cloaking techniques, analyzing technologies used on websites, and preemptively assessing threats by scanning shortened URLs.
The Malicious URL Scanner API guide uses a heuristic model to determine whether a given web resource is likely unsafe. This is in contrast to the Safe Browsing APIs which check URLs against Google’s constantly updated lists of unsafe web resources such as phishing and deceptive sites, or those that host malware or unwanted software. The heuristic approach allows for more accurate detection of suspicious and potentially malicious links by avoiding false positives (URLs that are identified as malicious but actually aren’t) and also eliminating the need for additional checks by the VirusTotal servers (as each scan is independent of the previous ones).
Malicious URL Scanner API Guide: Protect Against Online Threats
VirusTotal provides several ways to submit files and URLs, including the primary public web interface, desktop uploaders, browser extensions and a programmatic API. URLs are analyzed by over 70 antivirus scanners, URL/domain blocklisting services and a myriad of tools to extract signals from the studied content. The results are correlated to generate an overall confidence score. The higher the risk score, the more likely the URL is to be malicious.
New features of the API enable you to customize your scans, such as by setting custom HTTP headers, and to request multiple target device screenshots like mobile and desktop. In addition, you can choose to make your scans unlisted, ensuring that they won’t be displayed in the recent scans list or search results.…