Cybercriminals, trying to make a profit, use malicious software to infect their victims’ computers. In this way, Internet users are exposed to viruses, computer worms, Trojans and various types of malware. If we want to protect ourselves from this harmful software, we must protect our computers by keeping them updated with the operating system updates and, in addition, adding a good antivirus, and if possible, antimalware software. However, sometimes the aforementioned tools are not enough. If we have doubts about a file containing malware, we can turn to online solutions that can detect viruses and other types of harmful software. In this tutorial we will see how documents are scanned for viruses and malware for free with a tool called DIARY from Eleven Paths.
The first thing we are going to do is see what DAILY is and what using this tool can offer us. We will also talk about its characteristics and a series of anonymous clients that we can use on different operating systems. Then we will see an example of the use of JOURNAL, in which we will see how it analyzes documents for viruses and malware.
What is DIARIO and what can it contribute to us?
With this online tool we are faced with a new concept in the detection of malware. DAILY we could define it as a malware detector and privacy protector. The operation of DIARIO is based on a scanning and analysis of documents in a static way. Thus, it is possible to keep users safe from threats and viruses, and in addition, the privacy of users and the content of documents is also guaranteed.
Its objective is to cover an area that antivirus software does not tend to fully protect. It should also be noted that it is not intended to replace our antivirus software, but to complement it. Ultimately, we find a key solution to detect new malware without compromising our privacy or sharing our content.
As for what you can offer us, below, you will see all the details:
- It is oriented to work with documents and they specialize in Office files and PDF. This allows us to check for viruses in most of the attachments we receive by e-mail.
- It is a smart solution that uses machine-based learning techniques.
- It has ultra-fast analysis, in which it is not necessary to read the content of the document to detect malware or other dangerous elements.
- Maintains the respect and privacy of the documents we send.
Therefore, DIARIO becomes an interesting alternative that analyzes documents in search of viruses and malware.
Features of this innovative solution
One of its main features is its concept for static virus analysis . This is based on the fact that the document is not saved at any time, and only analyzes its structure and formal characteristics. Its way of operating is by extracting the functionalities that are not assignable to a single document in order to then be able to create an efficient, predictive and intelligent analysis. It should also be noted that it is free, since we can use it for free to evaluate it.
Thanks to its self-learning function , which in no case will replace an antivirus, the latter will be a good complement to detect new malware. This is where macro malware detection comes in through a new approach to using machine learning. In case you don’t know, macro viruses are code that exploits the macro functionality of Office documents to perform malicious actions. It occurs when the victims open the file, it would also be the use of Machine Learning techniques to detect malware in PDF documents with embedded JavaScript. In this sense, they have developed a base framework for the detection of malware in PDF files.
In addition, it offers a novel design that is based on the malware detection learning of ElevenPaths, and also offers a great alternative for cloud computing environments. Its last feature is security , in which it is not necessary to send the entire document. Simply with some of its features, it already analyzes documents for viruses and threats.
Scan documents for viruses from your PC or Mac
In addition to directly uploading files from our browser to your website, where documents are scanned for viruses and malware, we can also use DAILY using add-ons and clients. One of them is OWA Plugin , which is a plugin that allows you to directly upload email attachments from Outlook in its web and desktop versions. You don’t need to use a password and it can be downloaded from here .
The anonymous client for Windows is an independent program for this operating system that allows us to drag and drop any file and easily upload it to DAILY. You can download it from this link . What you have to do to use it is to unzip the file and run the file Diario.exe it contains, then a screen like this will appear:
Here you can drag the files directly to the program, or press the Search button to enter the path. Then click on Analyze and you will get the result.
We also have the anonymous client for Linux based on a .deb package, which, as in the previous case, also allows you to drag and drop any file to DAILY and then analyze documents for viruses and threats, you can download it from this link . Finally, we also have an anonymous client for Mac OS that works in the same way as the previous cases, in this case it is downloaded from here .
“Anonymous Client” means that the content of these files is never uploaded and stored on the servers. However, if we are still reluctant, we could create our own anonymous client .
Use DAILY from your Internet browser
Obviously, the simplest and most comfortable way is to use it in our Internet browser. You simply have to go to their website by clicking on this link . Then a screen like this will appear:
Next, we click on TEST IT or we go down until we find the DAILY tool and we will see a screen like this:
At the top, you have a list with the file extensions that it allows to work with, basically those of Office and PDFs.
In the first line it allows us to work with a hash that we could define as a unique fingerprint of the digital data. In this case, it allows working hashes of the SHA1, SHA256 or MD5 type. An example of an MD5 hash would be this:
d53050cc00e9203196d28a295005bee9
If we write the hash and click on the magnifying glass icon, we will obtain the final result of the analysis. Next to it, you have a folder icon with which you could put a file using Windows explorer and then scan documents for viruses and threats. Then below, we have a large box that allows us to drag and drop files for DAILY to analyze them. Then you have to click on the UPLOAD button to analyze them. The BROWSE button would behave the same as the file icon on the first line.
Regardless of whether we do it in any of these ways, below it will end up showing you results like these:
Here you can see that you have not found anything suspicious in that PDF file that we have sent you to analyze.
As you have seen, thanks to DIARIO, documents can be scanned for viruses and malware, which can be a good complement to antivirus in different operating systems.