VirusTotal Releases VTZilla 2.0 Extension For Firefox Quantum

[tarekma7]

VirusTotal has released version 2.0 of their VTZilla Firefox extension so that it now supports Mozilla Quantum and includes additional features. With this release of VTZilla, VirusTotal added new features such as the ability to scan downloaded files automatically, scan links or pages, or enter a hash to pull up an existing report.

According to VirusTotal, due to the changes in how Firefox extensions need to be developed, they decided to redesign VTZilla with certain goals in mind.

"VTZilla 2.0 has been designed with various goals in mind. We wanted this new version to be easy to use, transparent to users and as customizable as possible. " - VirusTotal

Configuring VTZilla
When installed, users will see a VirusTotal icon in the Firefox toolbar.


VTZilla Icon

If a user clicks on the icon, they will be shown the extension's settings menu. This menu allows you to configure whether downloads will automatically be scanned, if you want documents to be scanned, if you should be prompted to scan before downloading, and whether you want download URLs to be sent to VirusTotal.

VTZilla Settings

Personally, for privacy reasons I would not enable the "Scan documents" setting as that cause the extension to upload any downloaded documents (Word, Excel, PDF, etc) to VirusTotal. These documents would then be accessible to researchers and other people who can download them and view the contents. 

If you wish to only scan certain files when downloading, you can put a checkmark in the "Show "Send to VirusTotal" prompt when download files" checkbox. This will cause the following prompt to be displayed every time you download a file, which asks if you wish to scan it with VirusTotal. 


This setting is useful if you are testing an internal program and do not want it uploaded to VT.

Automatically scanning downloaded files

When this extension is installed and you download a file, VTZilla will automatically submit downloaded files for scanning on VirusTotal. When done, it will display links to two different scan reports.


Reports available after downloading

The VirusTotal URL report is a report on the URL and the File report is a scan of the actual file that was downloaded. For the most part, the File report will be most useful for users.

By using this feature you can make sure that any downloaded files are safe before you execute them.

VTZilla Content Menus

VTZilla also includes context menus that you can use when right-clicking a download link or when on a page.  These context menus allow you to scan a link or the current page.


VTZilla Context Menu

You can also select the "Insert text/hash to search", which will perform a search on VirusTotal for the entered string or file hash.

Search Virustotal

VTZilla definitely offers a valuable tool to both consumers and researchers. For researchers, you you can easily query VirusTotal for existing hashes and easily perform scans. For users, you can now verify if a download is safe before you execute it.

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