At all times, we must take special care with the files that are part of our computer. In addition, we must verify that they do not contain viruses. Initially, we can always use our antivirus to scan them. Although there are other alternative methods. We have several options that will serve us to make sure that the files stored in our equipment are free of virus. We have numerous methods that we will serve to make sure that the files stored in our computer are free of virus. Next we will see 3 ways to know if a file has a virus.
In this case, the interesting thing about it is that it uses a wide range of antivirus scanning engines to check the files we upload. All this can be very helpful to make sure that these files are clean before running them locally on the PC. Keep in mind that an infected file can affect the entire operating system.
Scan the content with your antivirus
We have already told you many times that it is advisable to have an antivirus installed on your PC. In addition, it must be properly updated to respond to the latest malicious code. This means that our local security software should be the first way to detect a virus in suspicious files. Generally, these programs allow us to scan both the operating system as a whole. But also in a specific file, which is what we are interested in now. In this way, we can largely rule out that the content we suspect is infected by some type of malware.
Send the suspicious files to VirusTotal
Since this website makes use of a multitude of different antivirus engines, as you can imagine, the effectiveness increases considerably. Typically, when we scan a local file on our computer, we do it with the only antivirus we have installed. In addition, it is a completely free service that we can use as many times as we need without spending a single dollar. It must be said that this service offers a comprehensive report with the results obtained by each of the antivirus engines. It is true that sometimes here we find false positives from time to time.
Thus, all we have to do is access the VirusTotal website. Once there, just click on the Choose file button. This way we select the content we want to analyze. Once this is done, we will have to confirm the upload of the selected file. After a few seconds, the website will present us with a complete report with each of the results of the scans independently.
Uses a virtual machine
In recent times, programs focused on the virtualization of operating systems are more widespread than ever. Here we can load any system to carry out all kinds of tests. And best of all, this does not affect the original operating system of the PC. Therefore, as you can imagine, this will be extremely useful when analyzing any suspicious file that we are going to download from the Internet, for example. In this way, we can perform all kinds of tests and analysis on it in the virtual machine without endangering the original system. In the case of detecting any positive, we will already know that we should not download that particular file to our computer.
Ultimately, we have seen 3 ways to know if a file has a virus. See you!
