when downloading movies, series and anime they mostly come in those formats. Can they contain virus? if yes, do they get detected with antivirus?
You must log in or register to comment.
Sure. Whether they’re effective and actually able to execute is another question.
A simple way might simply be to put an actual executable in the file instead, and when a user double clicks to open it it’ll run instead. Or there’s stuff to hide in metadata that could exploit particular players, or even some OS preview systems, and get execution that way.
But……really pretty unlikely. Possible definitely, but you’d have to go through a lot of effort to get hit by something.
Hypothetically yes. But consider that much like a virus growing in a petri dish, it needs an appropriate environment. A mp4/mkv/whatever file sitting on your hard drive that you never access is not going to be problematic. Even when you do access it, it is probably is not going to do anything unless you also open it in the viewer that the malware author intended the payload for. There is no general purpose video decoding malware. They target the players.
for the most part, you’re safe; because media files aren’t executable (like exe, appimage, etc) including a virus in the file wouldn’t do much. there could be a zero-day (e.g buffer overflow in the media file that exploits a flaw in the player/decoder, but that isn’t anywhere near as common as including malware in executable files.
As long as you’re using updated software (OS included).
There are a bunch of vulnerabilities for VLC for example. Some of them are based on modified .avi or .mkv files.
Note that those are all known and already patched but there are certainly some vulnerabilities out there that are unknown and/or unpatched. You’re quite unlikely to get one of those though.
The biggest security issue probably is an unpatched system so don’t forget to keep your software up to date.
don’t forget to keep your software up to date.
Our (internet-connected) Windows XP school computers:
Every time questions like this get asked, I get interested in seeing if it’s possible and try to get a proof of concept out. I wonder how many people are like me.
OP left out thier real question at the end:
And how do I make them?
Literally any file can be a virus. It’s not a matter of file extension.
Sure, but the difference is that VLC can’t execute code, and if you change the file extension to MP4 then a media player is going to try to open it.
So yeah it could contain a virus, but I think getting hit with that code is almost completely impossible.
Absolutely. Hell, hackers have managed to hide complete documents into image files so when you open the file you see only a vacation foto, but using special software, they can remove the secret document.
kinda different there though… it’s trivial to add whatever data you like to images etc (and that’s without even resorting to steganography), but that data is only accessible with an application. i believe the question was intended as whether you could get a virus from downloading/playing media files… the content of that “hidden data” isn’t executable, so whilst it’s reasonable to say it’s possible to transport a virus via hidden data in media, it’s not reasonable to say that you can “get” a virus using that same method alone
Yes they can, exploits in codecs are not unheard-of. Antivirus detect known malware, regardless of file type
deleted by creator
You Should never pirate movies, always buy them properly licensed.
Fuck that, I’ll play the content my way, bought legitimately (ripped myself) or not.
Thanks dad.
deleted by creator
