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Anti virus API?

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  • M Offline
    M Offline
    Mike Sax
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    Here's the scenario: Customers upload files via a support site. The support engineer needs to download the file, scan it for viruses and if it's infected, notify the customer. To avoid this hassle, we'd like to make virus checking a part of the upload process so we can immediately notify the customer and save time for ourselves. Is there any anti-virus company out there that has a simple "Scan this file and tell me if it's infected" function you can call? We can think of a few work arounds (like emailing the file to a mail server which has virus checking software on it), but we'd really like to make it part of the process. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... thanks!


    Mike Sax http://www.Sax.net Rock Solid Components™

    B J J M C 8 Replies Last reply
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    • M Mike Sax

      Here's the scenario: Customers upload files via a support site. The support engineer needs to download the file, scan it for viruses and if it's infected, notify the customer. To avoid this hassle, we'd like to make virus checking a part of the upload process so we can immediately notify the customer and save time for ourselves. Is there any anti-virus company out there that has a simple "Scan this file and tell me if it's infected" function you can call? We can think of a few work arounds (like emailing the file to a mail server which has virus checking software on it), but we'd really like to make it part of the process. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... thanks!


      Mike Sax http://www.Sax.net Rock Solid Components™

      B Offline
      B Offline
      Brian Delahunty
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      I've been looking for something to do this for a while as well. Well to be honest I haven't really been looking. I haven't had much time to. Could you email me if you ever come up with a solution. Would be eternally grateful :-D


      "When a friend hurts us, we should write it down in the sand, where the winds of forgiveness get in charge of erasing it away, and when something great happens, we should engrave it in the stone of the memory of the heart, where no wind can erase it" Nish on life [methinks] "It's The Soapbox; topics are optional" Shog 9

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      • M Mike Sax

        Here's the scenario: Customers upload files via a support site. The support engineer needs to download the file, scan it for viruses and if it's infected, notify the customer. To avoid this hassle, we'd like to make virus checking a part of the upload process so we can immediately notify the customer and save time for ourselves. Is there any anti-virus company out there that has a simple "Scan this file and tell me if it's infected" function you can call? We can think of a few work arounds (like emailing the file to a mail server which has virus checking software on it), but we'd really like to make it part of the process. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... thanks!


        Mike Sax http://www.Sax.net Rock Solid Components™

        J Offline
        J Offline
        Jon Sagara
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        How about this[^]? It's not an API, but it may work. Jon Sagara "Shut up brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip!"

        1 Reply Last reply
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        • M Mike Sax

          Here's the scenario: Customers upload files via a support site. The support engineer needs to download the file, scan it for viruses and if it's infected, notify the customer. To avoid this hassle, we'd like to make virus checking a part of the upload process so we can immediately notify the customer and save time for ourselves. Is there any anti-virus company out there that has a simple "Scan this file and tell me if it's infected" function you can call? We can think of a few work arounds (like emailing the file to a mail server which has virus checking software on it), but we'd really like to make it part of the process. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... thanks!


          Mike Sax http://www.Sax.net Rock Solid Components™

          J Offline
          J Offline
          John Fisher
          wrote on last edited by
          #4

          I haven't actually looked for a programmable interface that will do this. BUT, I know that some anti-virus programs have shell extensions that let you scan a specific right-clicked file. (i.e. Right-click the file in Windows Explorer and it lets you pick "Scan file with ..." AVG from Grisoft does this.) Without knowing how easy or difficult it is to access that interface (or whether you want to in the first place :~ ), you can find the shell extensions in your registry at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers. After you find the name, you can search for it, and you'll end up with the GUID for the COM object. Once you have that, you can use your favorite method of inspecting COM objects to see if it has what you want. John

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          • M Mike Sax

            Here's the scenario: Customers upload files via a support site. The support engineer needs to download the file, scan it for viruses and if it's infected, notify the customer. To avoid this hassle, we'd like to make virus checking a part of the upload process so we can immediately notify the customer and save time for ourselves. Is there any anti-virus company out there that has a simple "Scan this file and tell me if it's infected" function you can call? We can think of a few work arounds (like emailing the file to a mail server which has virus checking software on it), but we'd really like to make it part of the process. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... thanks!


            Mike Sax http://www.Sax.net Rock Solid Components™

            M Offline
            M Offline
            Mike Stevenson
            wrote on last edited by
            #5

            When you open a .doc file in MS Word, a little message that says 'Requesting Virus Scan' appears in the status bar. My guess is that there's some sort of interface, defined by Win32, that a system's registered virus checker adheres to. I've never read of such a thing, but you might want to look at winword.exe in Depends and see what it's importing. I'd look at the MS Knowledge Base too and see if you can find anything relating to that message. Good luck! :-D -Mike Stevenson Owner, Liquid Mirror Software and eBooks, Shareware Junction Downloads and Crush Alarm http://www.liquidmirror.com/ - http://www.sharewarejunction.com/ - http://www.CrushAlarm.com/ Sign up for the Shareware Junction Banner eXchange! http://www.sharewarejunction.com/swjbx/

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            • M Mike Stevenson

              When you open a .doc file in MS Word, a little message that says 'Requesting Virus Scan' appears in the status bar. My guess is that there's some sort of interface, defined by Win32, that a system's registered virus checker adheres to. I've never read of such a thing, but you might want to look at winword.exe in Depends and see what it's importing. I'd look at the MS Knowledge Base too and see if you can find anything relating to that message. Good luck! :-D -Mike Stevenson Owner, Liquid Mirror Software and eBooks, Shareware Junction Downloads and Crush Alarm http://www.liquidmirror.com/ - http://www.sharewarejunction.com/ - http://www.CrushAlarm.com/ Sign up for the Shareware Junction Banner eXchange! http://www.sharewarejunction.com/swjbx/

              J Offline
              J Offline
              Jon Sagara
              wrote on last edited by
              #6

              Google returns the following link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/security/antivirus/antivirus.asp[^] Jon Sagara "Shut up brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip!"

              J M 2 Replies Last reply
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              • M Mike Stevenson

                When you open a .doc file in MS Word, a little message that says 'Requesting Virus Scan' appears in the status bar. My guess is that there's some sort of interface, defined by Win32, that a system's registered virus checker adheres to. I've never read of such a thing, but you might want to look at winword.exe in Depends and see what it's importing. I'd look at the MS Knowledge Base too and see if you can find anything relating to that message. Good luck! :-D -Mike Stevenson Owner, Liquid Mirror Software and eBooks, Shareware Junction Downloads and Crush Alarm http://www.liquidmirror.com/ - http://www.sharewarejunction.com/ - http://www.CrushAlarm.com/ Sign up for the Shareware Junction Banner eXchange! http://www.sharewarejunction.com/swjbx/

                M Offline
                M Offline
                Mike Stevenson
                wrote on last edited by
                #7

                A quick search of the KB shows that there's a Office Addin produced by Symantec/Norton called Officeav.dll. It appears to be a COM object, so you could probably play around with its interfaces and get it to work if you're persistent enough. I'm not sure if it does a real virus scan or only scans Word docs internally, but you should be able to find out with a bit of testing. I assume that you'll have to have MS Office and Norton Anti-Virus on the machine in question in order to get it to work. -Mike Stevenson Owner, Liquid Mirror Software and eBooks, Shareware Junction Downloads and Crush Alarm http://www.liquidmirror.com/ - http://www.sharewarejunction.com/ - http://www.CrushAlarm.com/ Sign up for the Shareware Junction Banner eXchange! http://www.sharewarejunction.com/swjbx/

                J M 2 Replies Last reply
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                • M Mike Stevenson

                  A quick search of the KB shows that there's a Office Addin produced by Symantec/Norton called Officeav.dll. It appears to be a COM object, so you could probably play around with its interfaces and get it to work if you're persistent enough. I'm not sure if it does a real virus scan or only scans Word docs internally, but you should be able to find out with a bit of testing. I assume that you'll have to have MS Office and Norton Anti-Virus on the machine in question in order to get it to work. -Mike Stevenson Owner, Liquid Mirror Software and eBooks, Shareware Junction Downloads and Crush Alarm http://www.liquidmirror.com/ - http://www.sharewarejunction.com/ - http://www.CrushAlarm.com/ Sign up for the Shareware Junction Banner eXchange! http://www.sharewarejunction.com/swjbx/

                  J Offline
                  J Offline
                  Jorgen Sigvardsson
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #8

                  Ouch! Sounds really dangerous to COMify an anti-virus toolkit. It wouldn't be too hard to write a COM-dll/classfactory which proxies calls between Office and the actual anti-virus COM-dll. All you need to do is lookup the DLL of the Norton-antivirus based on the CLSID, then regsvr32 your own DLL using the same CLSID, and do dynamic loading of the real DLL and start proxying. Anything that is loaded dynamically and not digitally signed is unsafe for doing av-tasks. Microsoft may have solved it by requiring the DLL to be signed by an authentic Norton key. Does windows support signed DLL's? I know it supports signed drivers, but I'm unsure of drivers. If they do however, the Microsoft Office application must have Nortons public key somewhere (preferably encrypted using a private Microsoft key) in order in order to verify the authenticity of the av-DLL. So this leaves us hobby-hackers out of the game; I imagine Microsoft would require big bucks for this. And how are the keys distributed? It would suck if it was only distributed in the service packs.. If there is indeed some sort of AV-plugin interface in Office, chances are that they've built a fortress on sand.. FreeBSD is sexy. Getting closer and closer to actually submit an article...

                  T 1 Reply Last reply
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                  • J Jorgen Sigvardsson

                    Ouch! Sounds really dangerous to COMify an anti-virus toolkit. It wouldn't be too hard to write a COM-dll/classfactory which proxies calls between Office and the actual anti-virus COM-dll. All you need to do is lookup the DLL of the Norton-antivirus based on the CLSID, then regsvr32 your own DLL using the same CLSID, and do dynamic loading of the real DLL and start proxying. Anything that is loaded dynamically and not digitally signed is unsafe for doing av-tasks. Microsoft may have solved it by requiring the DLL to be signed by an authentic Norton key. Does windows support signed DLL's? I know it supports signed drivers, but I'm unsure of drivers. If they do however, the Microsoft Office application must have Nortons public key somewhere (preferably encrypted using a private Microsoft key) in order in order to verify the authenticity of the av-DLL. So this leaves us hobby-hackers out of the game; I imagine Microsoft would require big bucks for this. And how are the keys distributed? It would suck if it was only distributed in the service packs.. If there is indeed some sort of AV-plugin interface in Office, chances are that they've built a fortress on sand.. FreeBSD is sexy. Getting closer and closer to actually submit an article...

                    T Offline
                    T Offline
                    Tim Smith
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #9

                    It can be a problem. Luckily, most of the virus people are no-brains script kiddies. Only recently have these viri started attacking the AV software. Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture

                    J 1 Reply Last reply
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                    • M Mike Sax

                      Here's the scenario: Customers upload files via a support site. The support engineer needs to download the file, scan it for viruses and if it's infected, notify the customer. To avoid this hassle, we'd like to make virus checking a part of the upload process so we can immediately notify the customer and save time for ourselves. Is there any anti-virus company out there that has a simple "Scan this file and tell me if it's infected" function you can call? We can think of a few work arounds (like emailing the file to a mail server which has virus checking software on it), but we'd really like to make it part of the process. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... thanks!


                      Mike Sax http://www.Sax.net Rock Solid Components™

                      C Offline
                      C Offline
                      ColinDavies
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #10

                      AVG offers an API, But I have written twice and never got a response.:(( Regardz Colin J Davies

                      Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin

                      You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.

                      J J 2 Replies Last reply
                      0
                      • C ColinDavies

                        AVG offers an API, But I have written twice and never got a response.:(( Regardz Colin J Davies

                        Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin

                        You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.

                        J Offline
                        J Offline
                        Jon Sagara
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #11

                        Colin^Davies wrote: Colin^Davies C to the izzo, D to the avies ;P Jon Sagara "Shut up brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip!"

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • J Jon Sagara

                          Google returns the following link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/security/antivirus/antivirus.asp[^] Jon Sagara "Shut up brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip!"

                          J Offline
                          J Offline
                          Jorgen Sigvardsson
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #12

                          Hmm.. Useless Implementation/API I'm afraid. X| I've only studied a couple of computer security courses and I did my masters in this area, so I'm not by any means a computer security "professional". But I have two points to back up my statement: 1) It does not support system-wide policies. I.e., a sysadmin/secadmin cannot configure it to fully reject any suspicious files. (Sysadmins/secadmins may be fascist a**holes, but they are so for a reason - most of the time anyway :)) 2) The AV-software is implemented as a COM-object? That design choice should be awarded a Darwin[^] award. Dynamically loaded DLL's can be bypassed by the most clueless virus programmer. Consider this: You get a virus which has not yet been identified by AV-vendor X. It's executed undetected. Inevitable you say? Ok, very well. But the virus won't stop there. Of course it'll scan that cute CAT-id the API speaks of, and put COM-proxies around each and everyone of those AV-COM DLLs. Now the virus quite a grip on your AV-software. If the AV-software would have been put in some digitally signed form (registry and DLL needs to be tamper-proof/tamper-verifiable), this trick would have been a lot harder! Yet another blunt attempt by Microsoft to do "security". Microsoft has like a billion of researchers, some of them are the best in computer security researchers. Then why the hell do they push crap like this? :confused: (I guess the Office team doesn't have any connections with the research department..) FreeBSD is sexy. Getting closer and closer to actually submit an article...

                          J 1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • T Tim Smith

                            It can be a problem. Luckily, most of the virus people are no-brains script kiddies. Only recently have these viri started attacking the AV software. Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture

                            J Offline
                            J Offline
                            Jorgen Sigvardsson
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #13

                            Yes.. but this is an open invitation to all 12 year old script kiddies! FreeBSD is sexy. Getting closer and closer to actually submit an article...

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • J Jorgen Sigvardsson

                              Hmm.. Useless Implementation/API I'm afraid. X| I've only studied a couple of computer security courses and I did my masters in this area, so I'm not by any means a computer security "professional". But I have two points to back up my statement: 1) It does not support system-wide policies. I.e., a sysadmin/secadmin cannot configure it to fully reject any suspicious files. (Sysadmins/secadmins may be fascist a**holes, but they are so for a reason - most of the time anyway :)) 2) The AV-software is implemented as a COM-object? That design choice should be awarded a Darwin[^] award. Dynamically loaded DLL's can be bypassed by the most clueless virus programmer. Consider this: You get a virus which has not yet been identified by AV-vendor X. It's executed undetected. Inevitable you say? Ok, very well. But the virus won't stop there. Of course it'll scan that cute CAT-id the API speaks of, and put COM-proxies around each and everyone of those AV-COM DLLs. Now the virus quite a grip on your AV-software. If the AV-software would have been put in some digitally signed form (registry and DLL needs to be tamper-proof/tamper-verifiable), this trick would have been a lot harder! Yet another blunt attempt by Microsoft to do "security". Microsoft has like a billion of researchers, some of them are the best in computer security researchers. Then why the hell do they push crap like this? :confused: (I guess the Office team doesn't have any connections with the research department..) FreeBSD is sexy. Getting closer and closer to actually submit an article...

                              J Offline
                              J Offline
                              Jorgen Sigvardsson
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #14

                              Hell.. you don't even need to do any proxying whatsoever in this case. You just need to return S_OK from the Scan-method. It's not even hard! FreeBSD is sexy. Getting closer and closer to actually submit an article...

                              1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • C ColinDavies

                                AVG offers an API, But I have written twice and never got a response.:(( Regardz Colin J Davies

                                Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin

                                You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.

                                J Offline
                                J Offline
                                Jorgen Sigvardsson
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #15

                                Do you know how it's implemented? FreeBSD is sexy. Getting closer and closer to actually submit an article...

                                C 1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • J Jon Sagara

                                  Google returns the following link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/security/antivirus/antivirus.asp[^] Jon Sagara "Shut up brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip!"

                                  M Offline
                                  M Offline
                                  Mike Sax
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #16

                                  Thanks for the pointer - unfortunately, the API description says that the virus checker is responsable for showing UI to the user in case of an infected file, so it cannot be used on a server. It's amazing to me that none of the major anti-virus vendors seem to have an API! :confused:


                                  Mike Sax http://www.Sax.net Rock Solid Components™

                                  1 Reply Last reply
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                                  • M Mike Stevenson

                                    A quick search of the KB shows that there's a Office Addin produced by Symantec/Norton called Officeav.dll. It appears to be a COM object, so you could probably play around with its interfaces and get it to work if you're persistent enough. I'm not sure if it does a real virus scan or only scans Word docs internally, but you should be able to find out with a bit of testing. I assume that you'll have to have MS Office and Norton Anti-Virus on the machine in question in order to get it to work. -Mike Stevenson Owner, Liquid Mirror Software and eBooks, Shareware Junction Downloads and Crush Alarm http://www.liquidmirror.com/ - http://www.sharewarejunction.com/ - http://www.CrushAlarm.com/ Sign up for the Shareware Junction Banner eXchange! http://www.sharewarejunction.com/swjbx/

                                    M Offline
                                    M Offline
                                    Michael Dunn
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #17

                                    Mike Stevenson wrote: I'm not sure if it does a real virus scan or only scans Word docs internally, It does a real scan. Take it from a former NAV developer. ;) I assume that you'll have to have MS Office and Norton Anti-Virus on the machine in question in order to get it to work. That is correct. --Mike-- Just released - RightClick-Encrypt v1.3 - Adds fast & easy file encryption to Explorer My really out-of-date homepage Sonork-100.19012 Acid_Helm

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                                    • J Jorgen Sigvardsson

                                      Do you know how it's implemented? FreeBSD is sexy. Getting closer and closer to actually submit an article...

                                      C Offline
                                      C Offline
                                      ColinDavies
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #18

                                      Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote: Do you know how it's implemented? All I know is that I emailed grisoft@grisoft.com and got no response :-( I have no idea what it is, sorry Regardz Colin J Davies

                                      Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin

                                      You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.

                                      1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • M Mike Sax

                                        Here's the scenario: Customers upload files via a support site. The support engineer needs to download the file, scan it for viruses and if it's infected, notify the customer. To avoid this hassle, we'd like to make virus checking a part of the upload process so we can immediately notify the customer and save time for ourselves. Is there any anti-virus company out there that has a simple "Scan this file and tell me if it's infected" function you can call? We can think of a few work arounds (like emailing the file to a mail server which has virus checking software on it), but we'd really like to make it part of the process. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... thanks!


                                        Mike Sax http://www.Sax.net Rock Solid Components™

                                        J Offline
                                        J Offline
                                        James Pullicino
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #19

                                        Norman Antivirus: http://www.norman.no/[^] James Drinking In The Sun Forgot Password?

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • M Mike Sax

                                          Here's the scenario: Customers upload files via a support site. The support engineer needs to download the file, scan it for viruses and if it's infected, notify the customer. To avoid this hassle, we'd like to make virus checking a part of the upload process so we can immediately notify the customer and save time for ourselves. Is there any anti-virus company out there that has a simple "Scan this file and tell me if it's infected" function you can call? We can think of a few work arounds (like emailing the file to a mail server which has virus checking software on it), but we'd really like to make it part of the process. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... thanks!


                                          Mike Sax http://www.Sax.net Rock Solid Components™

                                          R Offline
                                          R Offline
                                          Richard Deeming
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #20

                                          Sophos has the SAVI API: http://www.sophos.com/sophos/docs/eng/manuals/savitoolkit.pdf[^]

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