Scanning the suspect binary with multiple anti-virus scanners helps in determining whether malicious code signatures exist for the suspect file. The signature name for a particular file can provide additional information about the file and its capabilities. By visiting the respective antivirus vendor websites or searching for the signature in search engines, you can yield further details about the suspect file. Such information can help in your subsequent investigation and can reduce the analysis time.
VirusTotal (http://www.virustotal.com) is a popular web-based malware scanning service. It allows you to upload a file, which is then scanned with various anti-virus scanners, and the scan results are presented in real time on the web page. In addition to uploading files for scanning, the VirusTotal web interface provides you the ability to search their database using hash, URL, domain, or IP address. VirusTotal...