Malware happens all too often, with it spreading like a wildfire around the world due to the connectivity offered by the internet, with banks and companies being offered money to install it. While not all malware is bad, it’s not something you want to invite into your system and Google’s new VirusTotal service looks set to provide an anti-virus for your firmware.
Firmware is an often neglected piece of code. It can be found acting as a bridge between your hardware and your software, more than often your operating system. The problem being that it’s often hidden from anti-virus and malware scanning software, even more so due to its notorious ability to survive clean installations and reboots.
VirusTotal will allow people to upload firmware images and then scan them for any signs of malicious code and even mark it as legitimate or suspicious, meaning you can quickly detect if that new BIOS’s image is actually going to help or destroy your new PC.
Being able to scan and detect viruses that have hidden under the radar for so long will come in handy for many. After it was revealed that malware could have been hidden in the firmware for hard drives by the NSA, people have been on guard and this new tool could soon have an array of firmware images to help scan, detect and protect systems around the globe.
Being able to scan everything from files to even URL’s, you can be certain that a site is safe and the files you download are safe before you even hit the link next time.
