Malaga IT company VirusTotal bought up by Google
The Malaga online virus and malware scanner outfit, has this month been bought up by Google. In contrast to other virus checkers, VirusTotal aggregates the checks carried out by other website scanners and antivirus checkers. In doing so they can detect more viruses than a single operator, yet at the same time rule out false positives.
VirusTotal was founded by Bernando Quintero, an interesing character who started his programming life on a Sinclair Spectrum, before progressing to an Amstrad where he came up against his first computer virus. Since that time he has had an interest in detecting and stopping viruses, and eventually founded the company VirusTotal. He states that the outfit was designed as a solution to a problem, not as a means to make money, although it's clear that Google see this as an important part now of their armoury.
Bernando intends to keep working at VirusTotal after the takeover as before - he sees their role as a life-long mission to increase the security for web users, and for VirusTotal to continue providing services to the IT security sector.
Directory entry for VirusTotal.
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