{"id":3489942,"date":"2026-05-13T18:12:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/13\/this-is-how-certain-of-the-globes-biggest-malware-banks-appear-when-arranged-as-hard-drives\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T18:12:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:12:29","slug":"this-is-how-certain-of-the-globes-biggest-malware-banks-appear-when-arranged-as-hard-drives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/13\/this-is-how-certain-of-the-globes-biggest-malware-banks-appear-when-arranged-as-hard-drives\/","title":{"rendered":"This is how certain of the globe&#8217;s biggest malware banks appear when arranged as hard drives"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The malware research organization vx-underground, claiming to have the most extensive collection of malware source code, announced in a post on X that its data archive is approximately 30 terabytes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a response, Bernardo Quintero, the founder of VirusTotal, a web-based service that scans files for malware using various antivirus engines simultaneously, mentioned that his platform has around 31 <em>petabytes<\/em> of malware samples contributed by users so far. (One petabyte is roughly 1,000 times larger than one terabyte.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In both instances, that&#8217;s a substantial quantity of data. To provide context, cybersecurity companies, artificial intelligence researchers, and threat intelligence firms regard collections like these as essential for training detection models and comprehending the evolution of attacks. This led us to question: How would these vast datasets <em>actually<\/em> appear when stacked as hard drives, both vertically and horizontally? And how would they stack up against something like the Eiffel Tower?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Someone in our news team posed this question to an AI chatbot, which provided a remarkably incorrect response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead, we performed some basic calculations to estimate how tall these data reserves would be. Since both vx-underground and VirusTotal report &#8220;about&#8221; this much data each, &#8220;about&#8221; suffices for us in this scenario.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Assuming we utilize 1 terabyte internal hard drives, as these are typically manufactured to have the same physical dimensions to fit in any computer. These standardized 3.5-inch internal hard drives measure 1 inch in height, which is precisely what we need to know for stacking purposes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are also assuming that the hard drives in this example are <em>exactly<\/em> 1 terabyte, as the actual usable capacity of a hard drive is usually slightly less.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Using an online conversion tool, it appears that vx-underground\u2019s 30 terabytes of malware data could fill 30 hard drives stacked together, reaching a height of 30 inches, or about 2.5 feet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For perspective, this reporter stands at 6 feet tall. (Refer to the visual below, and yes, I acknowledge the poor operational security.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the same reasoning, VirusTotal\u2019s 31 petabytes of collected data would require 31,744 hard drives, which when stacked, would reach approximately 2,645 feet high.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world, is a bit taller at 2,722 feet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Eiffel Tower stands at 1,083 feet tall. Therefore, VirusTotal possesses data equivalent to approximately two and a half Eiffel Towers.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2001\" height=\"7148\" src=\"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/this-is-how-certain-of-the-globes-biggest-malware-banks-appear-when-arranged-as-hard-drives.jpg\" alt=\"a screenshot featuring a stack of hard drives from left-to-right in descending order, starting with: Burj Khalifa (2,722 feet); VirusTotal (2,645 feet); One World Trade Center (1,792 feet); the Eiffel Tower (1,083 feet); Zack Whittaker, who is 6 feet tall; and vx-underground's malware repository is about 2.5 feet worth of hard drives.\" class=\"wp-image-3122210\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"wp-block-image__credits\"><strong>Image Credits:<\/strong>Zack Whittaker \/ TechCrunch<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>When you buy through links in our articles, we may receive a small commission. This does not influence our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The malware research organization vx-underground, claiming to have the most extensive collection of malware source code, announced in a post on X that its data archive is approximately 30 terabytes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a response, Bernardo Quintero, the founder of VirusTotal, a web-based service that scans files for malware using various antivirus engines simultaneously, mentioned that his platform has around 31 <em>petabytes<\/em> of malware samples contributed by users so far. (One petabyte is roughly 1,000 times larger than one terabyte.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In both instances, that&#8217;s a substantial quantity of data. To provide context, cybersecurity companies, artificial intelligence researchers, and threat intelligence firms regard collections like these as essential for training detection models and comprehending the evolution of attacks. This led us to question: How would these vast datasets <em>actually<\/em> appear when stacked as hard drives, both vertically and horizontally? And how would they stack up against something like the Eiffel Tower?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Someone in our news team posed this question to an AI chatbot, which provided a remarkably incorrect response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead, we performed some basic calculations to estimate how tall these data reserves would be. Since both vx-underground and VirusTotal report &#8220;about&#8221; this much data each, &#8220;about&#8221; suffices for us in this scenario.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Assuming we utilize 1 terabyte internal hard drives, as these are typically manufactured to have the same physical dimensions to fit in any computer. These standardized 3.5-inch internal hard drives measure 1 inch in height, which is precisely what we need to know for stacking purposes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are also assuming that the hard drives in this example are <em>exactly<\/em> 1 terabyte, as the actual usable capacity of a hard drive is usually slightly less.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Using an online conversion tool, it appears that vx-underground\u2019s 30 terabytes of malware data could fill 30 hard drives stacked together, reaching a height of 30 inches, or about 2.5 feet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For perspective, this reporter stands at 6 feet tall. (Refer to the visual below, and yes, I acknowledge the poor operational security.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the same reasoning, VirusTotal\u2019s 31 petabytes of collected data would require 31,744 hard drives, which when stacked, would reach approximately 2,645 feet high.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world, is a bit taller at 2,722 feet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Eiffel Tower stands at 1,083 feet tall. Therefore, VirusTotal possesses data equivalent to approximately two and a half Eiffel Towers.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2001\" height=\"7148\" src=\"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/this-is-how-certain-of-the-globes-biggest-malware-banks-appear-when-arranged-as-hard-drives.jpg\" alt=\"a screenshot featuring a stack of hard drives from left-to-right in descending order, starting with: Burj Khalifa (2,722 feet); VirusTotal (2,645 feet); One World Trade Center (1,792 feet); the Eiffel Tower (1,083 feet); Zack Whittaker, who is 6 feet tall; and vx-underground's malware repository is about 2.5 feet worth of hard drives.\" class=\"wp-image-3122210\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"wp-block-image__credits\"><strong>Image Credits:<\/strong>Zack Whittaker \/ TechCrunch<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>When you buy through links in our articles, we may receive a small commission. This does not influence our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3489943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3489942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489942"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3489942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3489943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3489942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3489942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3489942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}