How to Scan URL for Virus?
When people use the term URL virus scan what they generally mean is scanning a URL to see if it’s malicious. This is certainly a good place to start checking out whether or not a website is malicious. There are, however, further checks you need to make. It’s a good idea to understand these. Not only will they help keep your staff safe online (at home and at work) but they will also help you to understand what your customers want to see on your site.
What a URL virus scan can and can’t tell you
A URL virus scan identifies the genuine URL (which might not be shown on your screen). It then checks for any indicators that the site might be dangerous. This generally involves checking the URL against a blacklist of sites that are known to have issues.
The key point to note here is that this list changes frequently. Sites that are generated purely for malicious purposes tend to be identified and taken down very quickly. There are, however, two problems. Firstly, there is really little to nothing to stop malicious actors from creating new sites to take their place.
Secondly, hackers can attack legitimate websites to make them temporarily malicious. The owners of these sites then have to get back control of them (which is not necessarily easy), clean them up thoroughly (which is also not necessarily easy), and then get them removed from the blacklist (which is fairly easy but can take time).
This means that it’s vital that your URL virus scan uses the most up-to-date information available. If it uses old information, then you may find that it either misses sites that have become malicious or misidentify sites that were briefly malicious but have now been cleaned up again.
In short, a URL virus scan can tell you what the URL actually is and whether or not it’s currently identified as malicious but it cannot tell you if it is run by scammers who use social-engineering tactics rather than technical ones.
Identifying scam websites
The limits of URL virus scanners mean that you still need to keep your wits about you when you surf the internet. This means that when you visit any website, you should always make a point of applying the same common-sense checks as you do in real life. Here are some tips.
Check the overall quality of the website
These days, there are absolutely no excuses for poor page-load speeds, poor navigation, and, above all, poor content. Quite bluntly, these are all signs of a lack of effort. This means that, even if the site’s not actually run by scammers, it’s not likely to be run by people with whom you want to do business either.
Some scammers do put a decent amount of effort into making their websites run well and look professional. What they are not likely to do, however, is invest in the creation of original content. Often the most obvious sign of this is that they only use stock photography, even on the key pages. Stock photography can usually be identified as such at first glance so this is a time-efficient way of testing a website.
As with the previous comments, even if it turns out that the site is, in principle legitimate, you’re probably not losing much, if anything, by not using it. At the end of the day, if a company can’t be bothered to put any decent effort into its website, why should you believe that it will put any decent effort into its products or services, or, indeed, its customer service?
Contact details
This is a big one for modern customers. Rather ironically, the more we have come to depend on the internet, the more important it has become for us to know that there is a real-world human behind the digital storefront. It’s great if you can give a real-world address, as this offers maximum reassurance. You will, however, also need to think about privacy. For some companies, it may be better (for which read safer) to use a PO Box.
It’s also preferable to give a landline telephone number or, at least, a telephone number that looks like a landline telephone number. These days it’s possible to get VoIP numbers that are indistinguishable from regular landline telephone numbers - provided that you make sure to get one with the right dialing code. As a minimum, you must provide an email linked to your domain (i.e. not a free email address).
Privacy policy
If you’re collecting any sort of customer data, you need to have a privacy policy and you can expect it to be read. This means that you need to make sure it is up to an acceptable standard. Scan URL for virus and malwares now to remove threats from your website.
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