A computer doesn’t just get infected with malware by itself and it has to come from somewhere. It can be from a medium such as an infected USB flash drive, or an infected file that is downloaded from a website, and also from attachments in emails. The person who created the malware normally wants to infect as many computers as possible turning them into slaves that can be used to perform other actions such as launching a DDoS attack, mining Bitcoin and etc.
One fast method of spreading malware is by hacking a popular website to gain administrative access and injecting exploits or malware that is easily downloaded onto the visitor’s computer. Instead of the hacker using a lot of Internet bandwidth and processing power to push the malware to thousands of people, this method is much less tedious because the hacker just sits and waits for the visitors to get infected when they visit the popular website that is hacked.
Try our free virus scan and malware removal tool, then learn how Malwarebytes Premium can protect you from ransomware, spyware, and malicious websites. VirusTotal is a free virus, malware and URL online scanning service. File checking is done with more than 40 antivirus solutions. Files and URLs can be sent via web interface upload, email API or making use of VirusTotal's browser extensions and desktop applications.
Although an antivirus software plays an important part to ensure that any file downloaded from the Internet is scanned, scanning the URL before hand adds another layer of defense. Most antivirus software has a link scanner but if for some reason you prefer not to enable it, here are 5 external URL scanners that can use to manually check if the website is clean from malware or exploits.
1. VirusTotalNot only can you upload any file to have it scanned with 55 different antivirus, VirusTotal also has the ability to scan any URL using 63 different link scanning services. All you need to do is type the URL in the box and click the “Scan it!” button.
It may surprise you that the link scanning is very fast taking only a few seconds to complete scanning a URL with over 60 different services. This is not due to VirusTotal servers hosted under Google’s powerful infrastructure but it is because VirusTotal merely pulls the latest scan report out of each URL scanning service. So it is not necessary that each of the link scanning services available at VirusTotal are giving the most current scan results during the time of request.
Visit VirusTotal URL Scanner
2. URLVoid
URLVoid is another link scanning service by an Italian company NoVirusThanks that is similar to VirusTotal. Simply enter the domain name in the box and click the Submit Now button to receive the status of the hyperlink. Additional information such as when the domain was first registered, server location, Google Pagerank and Alexa Traffic Rank is accompanied together with the scan results.
Although URLVoid only supports up to 29 URL scanning engines, what we like about this service is the ability to conveniently access the official and more detailed report from the individual scanning engine website by clicking on the “View more details” link.
Visit URLVoid
3. Sucuri
Sucuri is a well known company that offers services to protect websites against malware and DDoS attack while also offering services to clean up hacked sites. Sucuri has a free and remote scanner called SiteCheck to detect if there’s any injected malware, errors, blacklista and even outdated software on the website.
Unlike VirusTotal and URLVoid that use third party scanning results, Sucuri uses their own propriety method that specializes in detecting malware in the form of embedded Javascript and showing you the location of the payload. The results are cached for 24 hours and there is a link at the bottom to force a rescan to clear the cache.
Visit Sucuri SiteCheck
4. Is It Hacked?
A hacked website can contain a malicious payload and it makes sense to check if a website has signs of being hacked so you can avoid visiting the dangerous website. Is It Hacked? uses a different approach which is to check if there is any cloaking which means a different web page is served to users and GoogleBot. This is to delay the hacked website containing malicious code being detected by Google SafeBrowsing.
It also looks for spammy looking links which are normally found on shady websites that have nothing great to offer to visitors, iframes which are normally used to inject payloads and finally perform blacklist checks from 3 well known sources (Google Safe Browsing, PhishTank, McAfee SiteAdvisor).
Visit Is It Hacked?
5. Web Inspector
Web Inspector is included in VirusTotal but the actual online scanner service reveals much more information about a scanned URL. The report page shows if the scanned URL is clean, suspicious or high risk with up to 7 days of scan history, checks the issuer and expiry date of SSL, and also checks up to 12 different categories of online threats ranging from the common blacklist checking to the dynamic heuristic virus detection.
Web Inspector is created by the same company that produces the popular Comodo Internet Security. Our only gripe on Web Inspector is it takes quite a while to complete scanning a URL.
Visit Web Inspector
You might also like:
7 Online Multi-Engine Antivirus Scanners to Scan Suspicious Files3 Free Online AntiVirus Scanners to Scan for Malware from Web BrowserTop 5 Online Services to Check if a Website Is Down or Up10 Free and Portable Offline Antivirus Scanners5 Ways to Check if a File in Website Has Been Updated without Downloading 23 Comments - Write a Comment
Thanks for sharing this best website malware scanning tools. I suggest you to add Quttera and Hacker Combat on this list.
ReplyThanks for the details.
ReplyThanks for your information, you can also check your website whether it’s affected with malware hackercombat.com/website-malware-scanner
ReplyNice post!
Replydrweb scanner is the best:
vms.drweb.com/online/?lng=en
Replyvms.drweb.com/online/?lng=en
Great tools! I would also recommend categorify.org to check your website ratings & category (also free and easy to use).
Replygood share Ray.
ReplyYes. A useful guide for university students, who always surf and move around different websites.
ReplyThis is a super find, thanks Ray
Replyyay my website is clean Thanks Raymond
Replythank you Raymond,
novirusthanks is an italian company.
They provide free security stuff.. I was not aware of this very userful web scanner.
bookmarked!
novirusthanks is an italian company.
They provide free security stuff.. I was not aware of this very userful web scanner.
bookmarked!
Regards
ReplyNoVirusThanks has had a single search for a good while now. Glad to see that they are keeping up and always looking to improve things. Thnx Raymond.
ReplyWell spotted Raymond – thank you – I will use this link.
RESPECT !
ReplyRESPECT !
Nice post Raymond,
URLvoid will be going into my bookmarks :)
URLvoid will be going into my bookmarks :)
Maybe someone can code up a firefox plugin for the site!?
ReplyThanks for this site. Just tried it.
i’m wondering what is the MD5 Hash for the website, as displayed on the result page?
Thanks, Grr
ReplyDarn… it lists your site as clean… I was hoping that the results in that screen capture up there were for you! :P
ReplyGood to know. Thanks Raymond. Thanks NVT.
ReplyThanks Raymond
Replyi like it , thanks great information, at least i can check my blog !!!!!!!!!
ReplyGreat Article Raymond, not often that i comment, but saw the opportunity and couldn’t miss it. :)
ReplyThanks for the good information! ^^
ReplyThanks for the info, Raymond.
I’m happy to know bout this.
ReplyThanks Raymond
ReplyLeave a Reply
Norton provides online scanner to scan the infected computer. Norton is providing it free of cost. To make sure that your computer infection free scan your computer with Norton Security scanner.
You still can use this, if have already installed an Antivirus software in your PC. It will make sure that your existing antivirus is working fine.
Norton Free Online Virus Scanner
Scan your computer with Free Norton online scan
Also see: Norton Security License starting from $19.99
Online virus scanner by Norton (Symantec) is a completely free online virus scanning service. It scans your computer and lets you know if any virus / malware / spyware are present in your computer.
But it will not clean up them, it will only show you the presence of virus. To remove them, you may need to buy Norton security. It is useful if you are doubtful whether your computer is infected or not in free of charge.
A minimal installation required to scan computer through Norton online scan. It will scan your computer through online virus definition or a cloud based antivirus instead of downloading any virus definition on your computer. That’s why it’s called online scanner.
Why choose Norton online virus scan?
Norton is one of the most famous names in anti-virus protection, so you will have the comfort of knowing that you are in safe hands. The experienced, expert staff at Norton have designed this software to work fast, without getting in the way of your everyday work. Despite this, Norton online virus scan is very powerful.
- Use it as a second opinion to make sure that your existing antivirus is catching all threats.
- To clean an infected PC.
- Trusted name in the PC security industry.
How to use Norton online free scanner?
You don’t need any special knowledge or expertise to use Norton Security Scanner, because everything is designed to be easy and user-friendly.
All you need to do is to download a small setup program from the official website – this is under 1 megabyte in size. When you run this, you will see prompts that will take you through the steps of using the scanner. It is compatible with Windows 10, 8, 7 etc.
You can get the free Norton virus scanning software at the official website, which is: https://security.symantec.com/getnss.aspx??langid=ie&venid=sym&plfid=22&pkj=NTSYLHFEPGEVVSDUXLX&vc_scanstate=2/vc_scan.asp
It will make a full and detailed check of your hard drive and any programs you have installed. If there are any viruses, Trojans, or other malware, Norton Security Scan will flag these up in an easy to understand way. You will then be able to decide what you want to do next, which will usually be to get rid of the malware.
- Norton Security promos (Country Specific)
If you have any question or doubt feel free to write in the comment section.
FAQs:
Q: Does it require internet connection?
A: As its name say it is an online virus scanner, so you need an internet connection to run this tool. For offline scanners refer to this page : Offline virus scanners.