VirusTotal founder Bernardo Quintero. Ñito Salas

Google launches first AI virus scanner using technology developed in Malaga

It is the first artificial intelligence tool to be released in the cybersecurity realm

Nuria Triguero

Malaga

Tuesday, 25 April 2023, 11:32

Google has unveiled a new AI virus scanner using technology that has been developed in Malaga.

The malware analysis tool, VirusTotal Code Insight, is marketed as a "cutting-edge" tool equipped with artificial intelligence technology that analysed code to identify dangerous files and cyber threats.

The technology, developed by the VirusTotal team in Malaga, functions like the well-known chatbot AI tools, and can read, summarise and translate code into texts in many different languages.

"This functionality empowers security experts and analysts by giving them a deeper insight into the purpose and operation of the analysed code, significantly improving their ability to detect and mitigate potential threats," security engineering director at Google, Bernardo Quintero said in an article published on the VirusTotal blog.

VirusTotal is a website created by the Spanish security company Hispasec Sistemas and was launched in June 2004. It was acquired by Google in September 2012 before the company's ownership switched in January 2018 to Chronicle, a subsidiary of Google.

Code Insight is just another weapon in Virustotal's free arsenal of tools to identify suspicious files.

"What sets this functionality apart is its ability to generate natural language summaries from the point of view of an AI contributor specialising in cybersecurity and malware. This provides security professionals and analysts with a powerful tool to discover what the code is about," explained Bernardo Quintero, who led a team of sixty people in Malaga.

"This type of analysis can be performed by various AI models, each offering different levels of accuracy and depth. However, the real value of VirusTotal's Code Insight lies in its ability to scale this analysis across its platform. As a result, security teams can quickly and efficiently analyse large amounts of code and identify potential threats.”