virustotal

Quickstart · Tools · HTTP · Security · Troubleshooting · Docs

mcp-virustotal is an MCP server that gives AI agents access to the VirusTotal v3 API. Hand your agent a hash, URL, IP or domain and get back the detection report plus the relationships an analyst would pivot on: contacted hosts, dropped files, resolutions, threat actors.

Note

Independent project, not affiliated with VirusTotal or Google. You need your own VirusTotal API key.

Highlights

• Reports with relationships. File, URL, IP and domain reports fetch key relationships in one batched ?relationships= call to save quota.
• Cache first. get_url_report returns the cached VirusTotal report and only submits a scan on a cache miss.
• Pivot tools. Corpus search with VTI-style modifiers (type:peexe positives:5+), merged sandbox behaviour summaries, and threat-actor and malware-family collections.
• Full relationship paging. 100+ relationship types across files, URLs, IPs and domains, with cursor pagination.
• Two transports. stdio for desktop clients, HTTP streaming for a shared service.
• Tested. Unit tests for the formatters and API layer run in CI on Node 20, 22 and 24.

How it works

flowchart LR
    A["AI agent<br/>(Claude, Codex, Gemini, VS Code)"] -->|"MCP over stdio or HTTP"| S["mcp-virustotal"]
    S -->|"validate input,<br/>HTTPS + API key"| V["VirusTotal v3 API"]
    V -->|"JSON"| S
    S -->|"formatted report text"| A

Quickstart

Requirements: Node.js 20 or newer and a VirusTotal API key.

# Claude Code
claude mcp add --transport stdio --env VIRUSTOTAL_API_KEY=your-key virustotal -- npx -y @burtthecoder/mcp-virustotal

# Codex CLI
codex mcp add virustotal --env VIRUSTOTAL_API_KEY=your-key -- npx -y @burtthecoder/mcp-virustotal

# Gemini CLI
gemini mcp add -e VIRUSTOTAL_API_KEY=your-key virustotal npx -y @burtthecoder/mcp-virustotal

For Claude Desktop, VS Code, Smithery and running from source, see Connect a client.

Then ask your agent: "Look up the SHA-256 275a021bbfb6489e54d471899f7db9d1663fc695ec2fe2a2c4538aabf651fd0f (the EICAR test file) and show what it drops and contacts."

Tools

Eleven tools. Full parameters and relationship lists are in the tool reference.

Group	Tools
Reports (with relationships)	get_file_report, get_url_report, get_ip_report, get_domain_report
Relationship paging	get_file_relationship, get_url_relationship, get_ip_relationship, get_domain_relationship
Search and pivot	search_vt, get_file_behaviour_summary, get_collection

HTTP streaming transport

stdio is the default. Set MCP_TRANSPORT=httpStream to run a standalone HTTP service:

MCP_TRANSPORT=httpStream MCP_PORT=3000 VIRUSTOTAL_API_KEY=your-key node build/index.js

docker build -t mcp-virustotal .
docker run -p 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 -e VIRUSTOTAL_API_KEY=your-key -e MCP_TRANSPORT=httpStream mcp-virustotal

A health check is served at /health.

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Description
VIRUSTOTAL_API_KEY	(required)	Your VirusTotal API key
MCP_TRANSPORT	stdio	stdio or httpStream
MCP_HOST	localhost	Bind address (httpStream only). The Docker image sets 0.0.0.0
MCP_PORT	3000	HTTP port (httpStream only)
MCP_ENDPOINT	/mcp	HTTP endpoint path (httpStream only)

Security

Warning

The HTTP transport has no authentication. Keep the port on localhost or behind an authenticating reverse proxy, or anyone who can reach it can spend your API quota.

• Tool arguments are validated with zod schemas before any request is built.
• The API key is read from the environment and sent only to VirusTotal.
• Lookups send your indicators to VirusTotal. A URL scan on a cache miss submits that URL for analysis.

Report vulnerabilities privately; see SECURITY.md.

Troubleshooting

• Wrong API key: the key is usually 64 characters with no spaces or quotes. Restart the client after changing config.
• 429 errors: the public tier allows 4 requests per minute.
• Logs: logs/mcp-virustotal-server.log in the package directory.

More in the troubleshooting guide.

Development

git clone https://github.com/w0h1v/mcp-virustotal && cd mcp-virustotal
npm ci
npm test                                  # build + unit tests, no key or network
VIRUSTOTAL_API_KEY=your-key npm run smoke # all 11 tools against the real API

The smoke test paces calls at 20 s for the public-tier limit and isn't suited to free tiers reduced to a few lookups a day. See CONTRIBUTING.md and the changelog.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.