February 10, 2022

Russian anti-virus company Doctor Web has updated its DrWebBot for VK and Telegram. These bots help users interact more safely on the Internet by scanning the links and files in their messages.

Changes affecting both bots:

• IP addresses in all valid formats can now be processed.
• An issue preventing the bots from extracting IP addresses found in links has been resolved.
• A link search error occurring when the bots were searching through text for links has been fixed.
• A link extraction defect involving messages containing Unicode characters has been eliminated.
• Adjustments have been made to the routines that parse links containing the hyphen symbol (“-”).
• A link extraction defect affecting messages containing emoji has been eliminated.
• An URL redirect parsing error has been fixed.
• The bots can now examine IPv6 addresses.
• If multiple URL redirects are discovered, all the respective addresses are now examined.

Changes relevant to DrWebBot for Telegram:

• The bot can now check whether multiple links are pointing to the same location.
• Bot service messages are now deleted from the chat window if the bot menu gets closed.
• Service messages are now deleted for bots with group administrator privileges if the ‘/feedback’ command is used.

To start using DrWebBot for VK, open this link. To configure the bot, use the ‘/settings’ command. Here you can also select the language for interacting with the bot and how the bot will notify you about scan results.

To use the Telegram bot, find the Telegram account @DrWebBot (or go to telegram.me/drwebbot) and send it a file or a link. The bot will quickly check it for malware and report on the results.