Every time we talk about malware, one of the first things that comes to mind is “prevention.” We will never suffer the effects of these digital horrors if our defenses (and our behavior) are robust enough, but if the goal is to thoroughly understand a malware variant, sometimes you have to let the Wookiee win... under special conditions. That brings us to Any.Run, a new service dedicated to offering different “sandboxes” for users to carry out real-time tests of their malware samples, without negative consequences.
Long gone are those original malware variants that simply presented a joke or political statement (like the legalization of marijuana in the Stoned virus). Today they want to steal your identity and your cryptocurrencies, empty bank and PayPal accounts, make online purchases in your name, or directly blackmail you to regain access to encrypted personal files. Add to that campaigns funded by government agencies, and exploits turned into weapons that wreak havoc once leaked. Security experts have had their hands full for a long time, and the market tries to respond by launching new tools that make their work a little easier, or alternatively, safer and cheaper.
And so we come to Any.Run, a brand-new online service that offers virtual machines equipped with network tracking and process monitoring. One of the most interesting aspects of Any.Run is that its operation is completely interactive, and allows both uploading local files and those resources available through a URL. The free edition of Any.Run is freely accessible (we only need to create an account on the official page), although it has some restrictions. The most important are an interaction limited to 60 seconds (more than enough to install and execute a malicious element on the virtual machine), and the environment itself, based on Windows 7 32-bit.
If you think Any.Run has what you need but prefer more time and an x64 environment, then you will have to acquire one of its higher plans, whose price is still unknown. In fact, if you go now to the official portal you will discover that it is under maintenance (a condition that limited my tests), so you will not be able to see the details of those plans, nor create an account. This is probably the dark side of Any.Run: a simple technical detail leaves you out of the service, and diminishes its value compared to local alternatives.
