Patent attributes
The present disclosure provides for performing virus scans at a storage device that stores one or more virtual machine disk image files (VMDK files). A secure AV module can coordinate communication between a file system on the storage device, a file system (FS) decoder, and an anti-virus engine to perform a virus scan of files contained within a VMDK file. A secure AV module can determine a subset of files that include changed data, where the subset of files is stored in a file system volume within a VMDK file. The secure AV module can use an FS decoder to translate file addresses relative to the file system volume into file addresses relative to the network storage file system. A secure AV module can provide the network storage file system addresses of the subset of files to the anti-virus engine, which can perform a virus scan on the files.