News

This is what some the world’s largest banks of malware look like stacked as hard drives

Published

4 months ago

May 13, 2026

Preport

Malware research group vx-underground, which says it has the largest collection of malware source code, said in a post on X that its archive of data amounts to about 30 terabytes.

A reply by Bernardo Quintero, founder of VirusTotal, an online service that scans files for malware across multiple antivirus engines at once, said his service has about 31 petabytes of malware samples that users have contributed to date. (A petabyte is ~1,000-times larger than a terabyte.)

In both cases, that’s a lot of data. For context, cybersecurity companies, AI researchers, and threat intelligence firms treat repositories like these as critical for training detection models and understanding how attacks evolve. But this had us wondering: What would these enormous datasets actually look like stacked as hard drives one on top of the other and side-by-side? And how would they compare to, say, the Eiffel Tower?

Someone in our newsroom asked an AI chatbot this question, and it got it incredibly wrong.

Instead, we did some rough back-of-a-napkin math to figure out how tall these data banks would be. Since vx-underground and VirusTotal both have “about” that much data each, “about” is good enough for us in this case.

Let’s say we’re using 1 terabyte capacity internal hard drives, since these are generally designed to be the same physical size to fit inside any computer. These standardized 3.5-inch internal hard drives are 1 inch in height, which for the sake of stacking one on top of the other is really what we want to know here.

We’re also assuming that the hard drives we’re using in this example are exactly 1 terabyte, because in reality the total usable file capacity of a hard drive is generally somewhat less.

Using this online conversion tool, it looks like vx-underground’s 30 terabytes of malware data could fill 30 hard drives stacked on top of one another, reaching 30 inches, or about 2.5 feet tall.

For reference, this reporter is 6 feet tall. (See visual below, and yes, terrible opsec, I know.)

With that same logic, VirusTotal’s 31 petabytes of submitted data would fill 31,744 hard drives, which stacked on top of another would reach about 2,645 feet.

The world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is slightly taller at 2,722 feet.

The Eiffel Tower is 1,083 feet tall. By that logic, VirusTotal has about two-and-a-half Eiffel Towers’ worth of data.

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. — **Image Credits:**Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

Related Topics:Banks drives hard largest malware stacked worlds

Up Next

Cornerstone Insurance Backs Lagos Flood Insurance Scheme for Four Million Residents

Don't Miss

MSF Bridges Malnutrition Gap, Treats 444,723 Children In 2025

Click to comment

Business

EFCC Hands Over Recovered N140m to Loan Firm in Lagos

Published

1 hour ago

September 18, 2026

Preport

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Lagos Zonal Directorate 2, Okotie-Eboh, Ikoyi, Lagos, have handed over the sum of N140million to an investment and money-lending company, B4 Sail Limited.

The recovery of the funds, handed over in bank drafts by the Acting Zonal Director, Lagos Zonal Directorate 2, Assistant Commander of the EFCC, ACE I Bawa Usman Kaltungo, followed investigations into an alleged case of obtaining money by false pretence and diversion of funds involving one Jacob Oyebola Esan and companies linked to him.

In a petition submitted on April 20, 2026, B4 Sail Limited alleged that Esan, on behalf of his company, Geo Fields Plc, had approached the company in August 2025 for a N500 Million Naira loan facility to boost his business.

The loan facility, according to the petitioner, attracted an interest rate of 15 per cent per month and had a tenor of one month.
Investigation revealed that Esan, who is the first suspect, had previously obtained other loan facilities from the company, bringing his total loan exposure to N1,065,000,000.00 (One Billion, Sixty-Five Million Naira).
It was also revealed that Esan pledged shares held by him as collateral for the facilities through Calyx Securities Limited, the clearing house for the stocks, with the understanding that the shares would be subject to a lien in favour of B4 Sail Limited and that the company would have the first right of payment upon the sale of the shares.

The lien, investigation revealed, was communicated to B4 Sail Limited through a letter signed by the second suspect, Gbolahan Azeez Bello, Managing Director, Calyx Securities Limited.

Further investigation, however, revealed that the shares pledged as collateral had been sold without the knowledge of the petitioner, resulting in the suspect’s alleged default in repaying the facilities.
Consequently, the outstanding loan and accrued interest had risen to N2,250,500,000.00 (Two Billion, Two Hundred and Fifty Million, Five Hundred Thousand Naira).

Speaking during the handover ceremony, Kaltungo stated that the recovery “represents a further step in the Commission’s efforts to ensure that funds and assets recovered in the course of its investigations are appropriately returned to legitimate owners and victims in accordance with due process.

The post EFCC Hands Over Recovered N140m to Loan Firm in Lagos appeared first on Business Today NG.

News

A startup that builds other startups raised $100M, and is all-in on physical AI

Published

2 hours ago

September 18, 2026

Preport

Four years ago, a startup lab launched that wasn’t quite an incubator, accelerator program, or venture firm. UP.Labs, as it was called then, built startups designed to solve problems for corporate customers such as Alaska Airlines and Porsche, as well as for the outside world.

The firm still has the same mission — albeit with a critical addition to its approach, a new name, and a $100 million investment from Silversmith Capital Partners. Vantora, as the firm is now called, continues to work with its corporate customers, including some new ones in industrial manufacturing that it declined to name, and in the oil and gas sector.

But now, it’s more focused on building startups solely for its corporate customers, and not for the broader market.

Founder and CEO John Kuolt told TechCrunch that Vantora is moving toward a “proprietary M&A pipeline.” This means Vantora will still build startups for its corporate partners, which invest in the ventures and serve as their first customers. But those corporate partners now have the option to fold the startups into their core businesses — and essentially keep them to themselves.

That shift has influenced Vantora’s increased focus on physical AI startups, according to Kuolt.

In the past, Vantora would end up spiking ideas that were strategic to its corporate partners, but too sensitive to bring to the outside world.

“We were missing on the biggest value problems, which had the biggest upside because of that,” Kuolt said in a recent interview. “Imagine you’re a Fortune 100 industrial company and you need to retrofit all of your hardware and machines for autonomy. You need to own that, it needs to be sovereign, and you can’t rely on a third party to go do that for you. You need to own that intelligence layer. They’re never going to let us go sell that to their competitors.”

This change has allowed Vantora to “unlock big physical AI use cases,” according to Kuolt, including with its existing customers.

For example, the firm came up with an idea to use AI to advance the business of its partner J.B. Hunt. “They said there is no way you can take this out to the world, and so we passed on it,” he said, adding that this proprietary model now allows Vantora to pursue it.

The firm launched in 2022 with Porsche as its first corporate partner. Since then, Vantora has launched several startups for Porsche and struck deals with Alaska Airlines, J.B. Hunt, Wabash, and TDG, the parent of Ashley Furniture.

In its early days, UP.Labs was tied — although never financially — to venture firm Up.Partners. While Vantora still shares office space with the California-based VC, it is its own entity, Kuolt explained, noting that the $100 million from Silversmith is the company’s first outside investment.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.