QUOTE
AV Vendors Taking Out Valuable Resource
Many readers might be familiar with Virustotal (http://www.virustotal.com ). This service provides its users the ability to submit a file and have several anti-virus engines scan it. Unfortunately, several major anti-virus vendors decided this was not a good use of their product (probably because it exposes which vendors are lagging on getting updates out) and have badgered Virustotal to remove their engines. Apparently too many customers would come back to AV vendors using Virustotal results to harass them about lagging signatures.
Many readers might be familiar with Virustotal (http://www.virustotal.com ). This service provides its users the ability to submit a file and have several anti-virus engines scan it. Unfortunately, several major anti-virus vendors decided this was not a good use of their product (probably because it exposes which vendors are lagging on getting updates out) and have badgered Virustotal to remove their engines. Apparently too many customers would come back to AV vendors using Virustotal results to harass them about lagging signatures.
I've noticed this myself over the past few weeks. The site is still up of course, but the roster of scanning engines seems to be changing quite frequently. I've noticed the absence of Trend Micro, as one example.
Just too bad...as a malware researcher it can help make my job easier, and I think it helps them as well because if it is detected by them and I see that on Virustotal.com, I won't "waste their time" and send on a copy to them.
