Virtual Analyzer

Virtual Analyzer is a cloud sandbox designed for analyzing suspicious files. Sandbox images allow observation of file behavior in an environment that simulates endpoints on your network without any risk of compromising the network.

Virtual Analyzer works in conjunction with Threat Connect, the Trend Micro global intelligence network that provides actionable information and recommendations for dealing with threats.

Cloud App Security sends suspicious files to Virtual Analyzer when a file exhibits suspicious characteristics and signature-based scanning technologies cannot find a known threat. Virtual Analyzer performs static analysis and behavior simulation in various runtime environments to identify potentially malicious characteristics. During analysis, Virtual Analyzer rates the characteristics in context and then assigns a risk level to the sample based on the accumulated ratings.

Note:

A suspicious object is a known malicious or potentially malicious IP address, domain, URL, SHA-1 value, SHA-256 value, or sender address found in submitted samples. Trend Micro Threat Connect correlates suspicious objects detected in your environment and threat data from the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network to provide relevant and actionable intelligence.

Parent topic: Adding Advanced Threat Protection Policies

Configuring Virtual Analyzer

  1. Select Virtual Analyzer.
  2. Select Enable Virtual Analyzer.
    Note:

    It takes three minutes on average for Virtual Analyzer, if enabled, to analyze and identify the risk of an attachment or file, and the time could be as long as 30 minutes for some files.

  3. Optionally select the Monitor and log only check box to enable Virtual Analyzer to work in monitor mode.
    Note:

    • This option is not available for Gmail.

    • Virtual Analyzer in monitor mode still analyzes suspicious messages and files sent by Cloud App Security, which, however, only records the messages and files in logs and delivers them to end users without taking any actions configured here. This helps evaluate the Virtual Analyzer capability with zero impact on mail flow and file sharing.

    • If Virtual Analyzer in monitor mode is enabled, all the following settings do not apply except that Cloud App Security notifies administrators upon detection of security risks, if enabled in Action.

  4. (Exchange Online and Gmail only) Select the scope of email messages that Virtual Analyzer scanning applies to.

    • All messages: means that this policy applies to incoming, outgoing, and internal email messages. Incoming/outgoing email messages are sent from/to non-internal domains.

    • Incoming messages: means that this policy applies only to incoming email messages sent from non-internal domains.

    Note:

    For details about internal domains, see Configuring Internal Domains

    For Exchange Online (Inline Mode), the scope is fixed to Inbound messages for inbound protection and Outbound messages for outbound protection. Inbound messages are sent from outside your organization to an address inside the organization, while outbound messages are sent from your organization to external addresses.

  5. (Exchange Online and Gmail only) Configure Approved Sender List.
    1. Select Enable the approved sender list.
    2. Specify a sender email address to exclude from scanning and click Add >.
      Note:

      Be aware that for individual email addresses, wildcard characters and regular expressions are not supported.

    3. Optionally click Import to import sender email addresses in batches.
  6. Configure Approved File List to add files that you do not want to send for further analysis by Virtual Analyzer.
    Note:

    In this release, this option is not available for Microsoft Teams (Chat).

    1. Select Enable the approved file list.
    2. Specify the complete file name (name and extension) of a file to exclude from scanning and click Add >.

      Cloud App Security uses an exact match for a specified file name, including both the name and the extension. For example, if you want to exclude a file named file.txt from being sent to Virtual Analyzer, type file.txt. Specifying file only will not match this required file.

      File names are case-insensitive.

      A maximum of 1,024 file names is supported.

      The entire file name cannot exceed 255 characters.

      Wildcard characters and regular expressions are not supported.

      A file name cannot contain any of the following characters: / \ : * ? < > " |.

    3. Optionally click Import to import file names in batches.
    4. Optionally click Export to export the specified file names as a .txt file.
  7. Configure Action settings.
    Note:

    Virtual Analyzer assigns a risk level to analyzed files based on the file's behavior in the virtual sandbox. Select the action based on this assigned risk level.

    • Exchange Online, Exchange Online (Inline Mode) - Inbound Protection, Exchange Online (Inline Mode) - Outbound Protection policies

    Option Description

    Tag subject

    Cloud App Security adds keywords before email message subject (Risk Level: <subject> ) to inform the user that an action occurred. The email message is delivered to the intended recipient, but the tag informs them that the original content was infected and was replaced.

    Delete

    Cloud App Security deletes the entire email message.

    Quarantine

    Cloud App Security moves the email message to a dedicated quarantine location, removing it as a security risk to protected services.

    Note:

    For Exchange Online, the quarantine location is a folder in the user's mailbox; for Exchange Online (Inline Mode), the quarantine location is in the storage of Cloud App Security.

    Pass

    Cloud App Security records the detection in a log and the message is unchanged.

    Move to Junk Email folder

    Cloud App Security moves the email message to the user's Junk Email folder.

    Note:

    • This action option is available only to email messages whose attachment was submitted to Virtual Analyzer and classified as Unrated, which means that the submitted sample was not analyzed by Virtual Analyzer for a certain reason.

    • This action option is not available for Exchange Online (Inline Mode) - Outbound Protection.
    • SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams (Teams), Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive policies
    Option Description

    Delete

    Cloud App Security deletes the file and replaces it with a replacement text file.

    Quarantine

    Cloud App Security moves the file to a restricted access folder, removing it as a security risk to protected services.

    Pass

    Cloud App Security records the detection in a log and the file is unchanged.

    Advanced Options

    Specify text to replace the original file content when a file is quarantined or deleted.
    • Teams Chat policies
    Option Description

    Pass

    Cloud App Security records the detection in a log and the message is unchanged.

    Block

    Cloud App Security calls Microsoft Teams to hide the message from both the sender and recipient.

    Note:

    If a file in a chat message violated the policy, it was hidden from the private chat window (the Chat tab), but it is still stored in the sender's OneDrive folder and shown on the Files tab.
    • Gmail policies
    Option Description

    Label email

    Cloud App Security includes a label Risky (by Trend Micro) at the top of the email message in the user's mailbox.

    Delete

    Cloud App Security deletes the entire email message.

    Pass

    Cloud App Security records the detection in a log and the message is unchanged.

    Quarantine

    Cloud App Security moves the file to a restricted access folder, removing it as a security risk to protected services.
  8. Configure Notification settings.
    Option Description

    Notify administrator

    Specify message details to notify administrators that Cloud App Security detected a security risk and took action on an email message, attachment, or file.

    Notification threshold sets limits on messages to send. Threshold settings include:

    • Send consolidated notifications periodically: Cloud App Security sends an email message that consolidates all the notifications for a period of time. Specify the period of time by typing a number in the box and selecting hour(s) or day(s).

    • Send consolidated notifications by occurrences: Cloud App Security sends an email message that consolidates notifications for a set number of filtering actions. Specify the number of virus/malware occurrences by typing a number in the box.

    • Send individual notifications: Cloud App Security sends an email message notification every time Cloud App Security performs a filtering action.

    Notify User

    Exchange Online and Gmail: Specify message details that notify recipients that Cloud App Security detected a security risk and took action on their email message or attachment.

    SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams (Teams), Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive: Specify message details that notify the user who updated a file that Cloud App Security detected a security risk and took action on their file.

    Teams Chat: Cloud App Security does not provide this option. When a chat message was blocked, a notification "This message was blocked." provided by Microsoft appears in the sender's private chat window. Message senders can click What can I do? to view more information about the blocked messages.
    Note:

    When specifying a notification message, include relevant tokens and edit the message content as desired. For details about tokens, see Token List.

  9. Click Save or select another policy configuration on the left navigation to continue with additional rules.