How to Virus Scan Node.js Form Uploads using a Free API

If we don’t set up our Node.js forms to identify threats, file uploads via client-side web forms can carry virus- or malware-infected files into sensitive downstream locations.

Thankfully, we can easily protect our Node.js forms by incorporating a free virus scanning API into our server-side code.

We can use this API to 1) identify viruses and malware, 2) identify threatening content types (e.g., executables, macros, password protected files, etc.), and 3) deep-verify the uploaded file format (i.e., look past the file extension) to ensure it rigorously conforms with file formatting standards.

We can set up our API call by referring to ready-to-run Node.js code examples provided below.

We can handle client SDK installation by either running this command (to install via NPM install):

npm install cloudmersive-virus-api-client --save

Or by adding this snippet to our package.json:

  "dependencies": {
    "cloudmersive-virus-api-client": "^1.1.9"
  }

Then, we can use the below code examples to structure the request containing our client-side file upload:

var CloudmersiveVirusApiClient = require('cloudmersive-virus-api-client');
var defaultClient = CloudmersiveVirusApiClient.ApiClient.instance;

// Configure API key authorization: Apikey
var Apikey = defaultClient.authentications['Apikey'];
Apikey.apiKey = 'YOUR API KEY';



var apiInstance = new CloudmersiveVirusApiClient.ScanApi();

var inputFile = Buffer.from(fs.readFileSync("C:\\temp\\inputfile").buffer); // File | Input file to perform the operation on.

var opts = { 
  'allowExecutables': true, // Boolean | Set to false to block executable files (program code) from being allowed in the input file.  Default is false (recommended).
  'allowInvalidFiles': true, // Boolean | Set to false to block invalid files, such as a PDF file that is not really a valid PDF file, or a Word Document that is not a valid Word Document.  Default is false (recommended).
  'allowScripts': true, // Boolean | Set to false to block script files, such as a PHP files, Python scripts, and other malicious content or security threats that can be embedded in the file.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended).
  'allowPasswordProtectedFiles': true, // Boolean | Set to false to block password protected and encrypted files, such as encrypted zip and rar files, and other files that seek to circumvent scanning through passwords.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended).
  'allowMacros': true, // Boolean | Set to false to block macros and other threats embedded in document files, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint embedded Macros, and other files that contain embedded content threats.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended).
  'allowXmlExternalEntities': true, // Boolean | Set to false to block XML External Entities and other threats embedded in XML files, and other files that contain embedded content threats.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended).
  'allowInsecureDeserialization': true, // Boolean | Set to false to block Insecure Deserialization and other threats embedded in JSON and other object serialization files, and other files that contain embedded content threats.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended).
  'allowHtml': true, // Boolean | Set to false to block HTML input in the top level file; HTML can contain XSS, scripts, local file accesses and other threats.  Set to true to allow these file types.  Default is false (recommended) [for API keys created prior to the release of this feature default is true for backward compatability].
  'restrictFileTypes': "restrictFileTypes_example" // String | Specify a restricted set of file formats to allow as clean as a comma-separated list of file formats, such as .pdf,.docx,.png would allow only PDF, PNG and Word document files.  All files must pass content verification against this list of file formats, if they do not, then the result will be returned as CleanResult=false.  Set restrictFileTypes parameter to null or empty string to disable; default is disabled.
};

var callback = function(error, data, response) {
  if (error) {
    console.error(error);
  } else {
    console.log('API called successfully. Returned data: ' + data);
  }
};
apiInstance.scanFileAdvanced(inputFile, opts, callback);

To authorize our request, we’ll just need a free Cloudmersive API key. This will allow us to make up to 800 API calls per month with no additional commitments.

We can use information from the API response to take actions against threatening files and prevent them from reaching sensitive locations downstream from our Node.js form.