Google Releases Malware Security Tool VirusTotal Uploader for OS X

The app can be downloaded from the VirusTotal page, which also details that the service is for machines running OS X 10.7 or higher.

Google acquired VirusTotal, a free security service on the Internet able to also quickly scan the image files of running processes, trigger scans of remote URL content before saving it to disk, and more, back in 2012.

VirusTotal in a blog post announced the release and said, "Today we are proud to announce a new VirusTotal Uploader for OS X. It is available for download on our Desktop Applications page. Internally it uses our public API to schedule uploads of files, with the exact same limitations that any public API user would experience. Hopefully this will lead to VirusTotal receiving more Mac applications, diving deeper into an increasingly targeted OS by attackers and allowing antivirus companies and researchers making use of VirusTotal's backend to build stronger defences against these threats."

The VirusTotal Uploader for OS X will allow Mac users to upload suspicious apps or files for scanning possible malware threats.

Users can submit files and apps to VirusTotal by dragging and dropping folders or apps to scan them, or by right clicking, or control-clicking on a file, click Open With, and then select the VirusTotal uploader app.

As The Next Web notes, a significant portion of the Google workforce uses OS X, and Google's release may have been for that very reason. It could also serve the purpose of highlighting what Google is calling the 'increasingly targeted' nature of Apple's OS X, while pointing to ChromeOS.