ClamAV is an antivirus engine designed to detect viruses, trojans, worms, malicious scripts and other threats. Originally developed with email gateway scanning in mind, it is also widely used for checking files, downloads, web server uploads and shared storage.
The software includes a command-line scanner, a multithreaded scanning daemon and a shared library that other applications can use. It is suitable for both manual checks and integration into automated security workflows.
ClamAV is particularly useful on Linux servers that handle files originating from different operating systems. Its scanning engine can inspect many archive, document and executable formats without relying on their filename extensions.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Scan individual files, directories and entire filesystems using the clamscan command-line utility.
- Multithreaded clamd daemon for handling scanning requests from local or remote applications.
- On-access scanning under Linux using clamonacc, with optional blocking of access to infected files.
- Automatic malware signature database updates using freshclam, including verification of digitally signed updates.
- Examine compressed files and archives including ZIP, RAR, 7-Zip, TAR, Gzip, Bzip2 and XZ.
- Inspect Microsoft Office documents, PDF files, HTML, RTF, email messages and attachments.
- Detection of malware in ELF, Windows Portable Executable and Mach-O binaries.
- Identify malicious Office macros and recognise suspicious content using heuristic detection.
- Support for custom signatures and the ClamAV bytecode signature system.
- Configurable scanning limits to reduce the risk of excessive resource consumption when inspecting complex archives.
- Clamdscan client for submitting files to a running daemon, with support for parallel scanning.
- Mail filtering integration through clamav-milter.
- Scanning reports, logging and configurable handling of detected threats.
- Cross-platform support – runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Website: www.clamav.net
Support:
Developer: ClamAV Team (Cisco)
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
Related Software
| Anti-Malware Tools | |
|---|---|
| ClamAV | Antivirus engine for detecting trojans, viruses, malware and other threats |
| YARA-X | Re-incarnation of YARA |
| YARA | Pattern matching swiss knife for malware researchers |
| Maltrail | Malicious traffic detection system |
| ClamTk | Graphical frontend for ClamAV |
| LMD | Malware scanner focusing on threats faced in shared hosted environments |
| phpMussel | PHP-based anti-virus anti-trojan anti-malware solution |
| Raspirus | Lightweight signature-based malware scanner |
| FastFinder | Fast suspicious file finder |
| chkrootkit | Locally checks for signs of a rootkit |
| Unhide | Forensic tool to find hidden processes and TCP/UDP ports |
| Atomdrift Scan | Malware and supply chain scanner for software security |
| paranoya | Malware scanner using indicators of compromise and YARA rules |
| decloaker | Security tool for revealing objects concealed by malware |
| Lenspect | Lightweight security threat scanner |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 LinuxLinks helps you discover the best free and open source software for Linux. Explore our extensive collection of recommended applications, including alternatives to popular proprietary software.We also publish software reviews, Linux tutorials, hardware reviews, free programming books and articles covering the wider open source community. Browse our Linux resources to discover more. Know a useful free and open source Linux application we haven't covered? Suggest a program for inclusion. Has your software been featured on LinuxLinks? Display one of our Featured on LinuxLinks badges on your website or GitHub README. |
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.