How to securely open a file
Working as malware analyzer or SOC analyst or Incident responder or Journalist or Governmental investigator, you may need sometimes or often to open a file from the internet or email address or any other source possible to receive a file.
As you may know, one of the easier ways for the threat actor to compromise someone is to send him or her a malicious file that look like a legitimate one. This issue been for decade and still is one of the most efficient ways to target the users.
The best way to securely open any file is to have your own SANDBOX (automatic or manual sandbox) that may check the file before opening it. However, if you do not have enough resources to implement a sandbox, you still can use online tools to open a file securely.
It worth mentioning that opening a confidential file or highly sensitive file using online tools could lead to data leak. Be careful always before you use a tool to open a file online. The best option is to use a tool that you can download offline and use.
In the upcoming line, we will share some tools that you can use online to view the file content without the risk of being compromised.
DANGERZONE
Dangerzone allow a user to open dangerous PDFs, office documents, images and convert them to safe PDFs.
Dangerzone: Convert potentially dangerous documents into safe PDFs
Pdffiller
An online tool to open a PDF file online.
Google Drive
You can use Google Drive to open a file without harming you.
For example, when you receive a message from Gmail containing an attachment, you can add the attachment to Google Drive and view it. By doing it that, you avoid your system from being infected if the file is malicious.
Onlinedocumentviewer
The tool can be used to open different files formats such as office packages files, pdf and others.
https://onlinedocumentviewer.com/
Dropbox
You can use Dropbox to open a file without damaging your computer.
They are many tools that you can use online to view a file but the inconveniency can raise. For example, the confidential file share online can fall in the hand of other people. If you upload a malicious file via online tool, another person that gets in touch and open the file on his system can be infected. Always be careful before you open a file online and download any file from the file viewer sources.
Bangaly Koita is a Cyber Security Analyst and researcher working for Radarcs Cyber Security in Vienna-Austria. As a passionate in cyber security, he writes articles to share his knowledge and experience to the vast community of IT but in general Cyber Security.
