Classify Wazuh VirusTotal responses before making a file decision

Bottom line: Classify the response before recording a file assessment. An unsuccessful lookup, an unknown hash and a returned report with no positives belong in different entries in the investigation record.

Source fact: documented behavior

The VirusTotal integration guide describes extracting a file hash from an FIM alert and comparing it with information in the VirusTotal database.

Its response categories include credential errors, request-rate errors, no database record, no positives and detection by one or more engines.

The no-positives example has found set to 1 and malicious set to 0, while the credential and rate-limit examples are errors.

What the source does not establish

This article classifies the integration’s documented responses. It does not certify a file as safe, prescribe provider quotas or business-use entitlements, or claim that an unsuccessful lookup supplies a negative malware result.

Applicability questions

• Which file hash and originating FIM event are being assessed?
• Was the response an error or a completed lookup category?
• Was a database record actually returned?
• Who reviews the current provider terms and unresolved assessments?

DSE recommendation: controlled next steps

The following steps are DSE recommendations based on the cited source.

DSE recommends retaining the response category and its meaning separately from the analyst’s final disposition of a file.

1. Create an assessment record linking the intended hash, originating event and lookup response. Preserve the category before an analyst assigns a final disposition. Keep a response error open for operational investigation rather than converting it to a clean-file result. Confirm that the integration is authorized under the provider’s current access terms through the responsible service owner.
2. Use a sanitized desk fixture with one record for each documented category. Ask the investigator to distinguish credentials and rate-limit problems from an absent database record, a report with no positives and a positive detection report. Keep fixture values clearly synthetic. Do not download malware, reproduce an exploit or consume a live quota merely to demonstrate the classification workflow.
3. For an actual investigation, retain the available report reference and observation time with the hash assessment. Route integration errors to the integration owner and unresolved file decisions to the analyst. Define when an authorized later lookup or separate analysis is needed. Avoid making a zero-positive report a substitute for the organization’s complete decision about how the file may be handled.

Verification and evidence

Proposed verification: have a second reviewer classify the five sanitized response records without seeing the first reviewer’s labels. Compare the resulting categories and escalation paths. A disagreement about whether a record was absent or returned with no positives should be resolved from the documented response, not hidden inside a general passed status.

Retain the approved category definitions, redacted fixture references and actual review observations if the exercise is performed. For production evidence, preserve the real hash and response identity through the investigation’s access controls. No VirusTotal request, malware download or file-safety determination was performed for this article, and no provider entitlement or detection guarantee is inferred.

Official references

• VirusTotal integration — Wazuh; official product documentation.

Source review completed October 30, 2026. Recheck the official source and deployment-specific applicability before changing production settings.