As in title. What’s your experience with it? If something isn’t executable, then it has to exploit vulnerability in order to run anything malicious. But does it happen often with mp4, mkv and other files like mp3 or epub?
I assume that if I use updated linux, then I’m mostly safe?
I had dodged stuff before when I downloaded software, I’d be weary of anything you give permission to run on your pc. But for movies and music etc, I check what files I’m getting. While this doesn’t eliminate the risk of malware cased in a .mkv, I only download on a Linux VM, and usually first open on MacOS.
I don’t think I’ve seen malware associated with video content since the Limewire days. I think the closest I’m aware of in recent memory was some talk of malware coming out of some of the “fake” Pirate Bay proxies, but even then I’m not sure it was associated with video.
Any halfway respectable tracker public or private you should be fine.
Movies? Usually it’s like “go to malware.com for the password” but you wont get infected from movie files.
As far as anyone knows there is no way to put malicious code in a video file. What you should be worrying about is how you get those files.
If you’re torrenting then you have to worry about copyright trolls contacting your ISP. If you’re using file-hosting websites just vet your downloads and make sure you don’t run any sketchy executable files. And it should go without saying, but don’t escalate privileges for unknown programs.
Not entirely true as you can put malicious code in anything. The bigger question is whether or not your video player is susceptible to that type of attack. I would say the likelihood is low but not impossible. The best defense would be to make sure whatever video player you do use is fully up to date.
it’s almost impossible that some state sponsored attacker will waste a 0day to attack random people downloading the latest movie from torrent. And when it happens all the news will talk about it
