Box adds automated malware detection to Box Shield security product

With more folks working at home than ever, and many on machines outside the purview of IT and security teams, it’s becoming increasingly imperative to find creative ways to protect them from harm. Today, Box announced it was adding automated malware detection tools to Box Shield, the security product it announced last year.

Aaron Levie, CEO at Box, says that it’s important to find new ways of thinking about security, especially with millions of people suddenly working at home using cloud solutions.

“As people have begun working from home in greater numbers, you’re seeing an increase in malware and phishing attacks. [Bad actors] are starting to spread these security vulnerabilities in a much more aggressive manner, and so we’re launching Box Shield with malware protection built-in with advanced tools and policies around that malware detection,” he said.

The company is taking a three-pronged approach with this solution. For starters, it will let users view a file without actually having to download it first, while indicating if there is a risk associated with it. Next, it will actually prevent users from downloading a file with malware attached, and finally it will alert the security team when a file with malware has been uploaded to Box.

The idea is to keep the file from infecting whatever device that employees are working on, alerting end users when there is a problem, while letting them see the content of the file gives them all the information they need to know if the file is actually legitimate in the first place.

It’s so much easier right now to be spreading this kind of malicious package with people working from home, and sharing files at a far greater rate than ever before. This new feature is designed to give everyone in the loop from the end user to the IT security team some confidence that they can know when files are infected or not and keep them from proliferating inside of Box.