Recorded Future Intelligence Cloud vs. VirusTotal

If you want a platform that is covering thousands of sources, and that includes deep, dark web, clear web forums, blogs, newspapers, social media networks, etc. Recorded Future is the most complete solution that I have seen. On the other hand, if you are looking for a really advanced platform with lot of human added value, research papers, advanced investigations, etc. Recorded Future might not be the ideal solution.

Incentivized

VirusTotal is perfectly suited as a tool to help security professionals analyze files and URLs that require further analysis to determine security risks in the environment. It truly is a must-have in this world we live in!

Incentivized

• Gives latest threat reports regarding an artifact (IP, domain or hash).
• Browser extension provides a real-time information about an artifact.
• Accurate in identifying malicious domains and IPs.

Incentivized

• Fast file scanning
• No agent required
• Available from anywhere

Incentivized

• E-Mail reports can show unrelated content, especially sometimes you'll see alerts popping up for articles which have been published years ago but for some reason were just recently discovered by RF.
• Yara rules from their insikt blog sometimes are not syntactically correct and need to be manually edited to actually work. There's some proper QA missing.
• Their global and 3rd party risk reports could be more tailored towards the industries of their client. There is entries for totally unrelated security incidents. Of course a global list aims to find incidents on a global view, but it doesn't add much value at that point.

Incentivized

• I'm not sure VirusTotal can improve this themselves but just keeping up with the evolving "known" threat landscape is tough so even though VirusTotal is very good, nothing is 100% effective in this space.

Incentivized

I've had an issue with their browser-plugin which didn't want to authenticate correctly. RF's support could arrange for a session with me and identify and solve the issue. I was very pleased how serious they took my problems and also how knowledgeable they are.

If I have more general questions they quickly reply and most likely also have a solution at hand.

Incentivized

It is the most complete solution of these three, as the others are focused in specific areas and having really detailed analysis about threat actors, APT groups, etc. Recorded Future is not having this level of knowledge in really specific areas but doing a really good work covering thousands of sources and the most relevant forums.

Incentivized

Honestly, we have always used VirusTotal, its a leader in the industry and meets our needs perfectly so we have never had the need to look elsewhere

Incentivized

• Recorded Future crashes my web browser in cases I have to open a web page containing hundreds of IPs. A quick disable feature for a particular tab would be beneficial for someone like me.

Incentivized

• Extremely useful to confirm if a file is suspicious or not

Incentivized