VirusTotal: R Client for Malware Analysis API

Gaurav Sood provides an R interface to the VirusTotal API, a Google service for analyzing files and URLs for malware. The client supports API versions 2 and 3, offering features like file scanning, URL scanning, domain categorization, passive DNS information, and IP reputation analysis. It implements rate limiting, error handling, and response validation for security analysis workflows.

Use Cases

• Scan files for viruses and malware based on the file scanning feature
• Analyze URL reputation and safety based on the URL scanning feature
• Categorize domains based on the domain categorization feature
• Investigate IP address reputation based on the IP reputation analysis feature
• Retrieve historical DNS records for an investigation based on the passive DNS information feature

Strengths

• Implements rate limiting and error handling for reliable API interaction
• Supports both VirusTotal API v2 and v3
• Includes features for file scanning, URL scanning, domain categorization, and IP reputation analysis

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download

Provenance

Source

VirusTotal API (Google service)

Collection Method

API client implementation