Scanning for website viruses

A security company has released a free tool that allows users to scan websites to detect malicious code or other forms of attack before they visit.

The LinkScanner tool developed by Exploit Prevention Labs is the latest result of the SocketShield project. This will be a competitor to SiteAdvisor tool of security firm McAfee.

Chris Weltzien - Exploit Prevention Labs expert - said LinkScanner can completely scan links returned from a search result obtained from any search engine.

SiteAdvisor of security firm McAfee also obtained the same capability - scanning search results from Google, Yahoo or MSN. However, McAfee's tool uses a technology that is quite different from the Exploit Prevention Lab tool.

When a user enters a URL hyperlink in LinkScanner, the tool will scan the destination website to search for malicious software code or other attack methods. Results are immediately notified to users.

However, the tool is not able to warn users about potentially malicious websites. Some sites are identified by Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 as phishing spoofing links, but LinkScanner cannot detect it. This seems easy to understand because LinkScanner tool is only for detecting malicious code software.

" We don't go deep into the site ," said Joe Chiarella, product manager for Exploit Prevention Lab. " LinkScanner can only scan the target site from the URL that the user entered. The tool cannot scan the dependent pages of the target website. We can scan deeper but not the user. Users can only wait about 30 seconds, LinkScanner takes 10 seconds to scan a web page ".

LinkScanner is a free tool and will always be a free tool, Weltzien said.

Users can use this tool at http://www.explabs.com/linkscanner/

Hoang Dung