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?

  • Brickfrog
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    271 year ago

    But does it happen often with mp4, mkv and other files like mp3 or epub?

    Typically is not possible. Those media files are basically just data files (e.g. like a .txt text file) so media players normally do not look for anything to execute inside them. And frankly people should avoid any media player attempting to execute random code found in media files.

    Case in point, the old Windows Media Player + old .wmv files used to be able to direct people to random websites to download/execute malware. Leave it to Microsoft to somehow turn a movie file into malware https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/106188/can-a-rogue-wmv-file-hijack-windows-media-player

    • @[email protected]
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      101 year ago

      It’s not about a media player ‘attempting to execute random code’ - an exploit is found which lets it run a command that it shouldn’t. You used to be able to jailbreak phones by loading a .pdf file that used an exploit to gain root privileges and execute code. It wasn’t a feature of the PDF reader. It was a bug that could be exploited when a specific string of characters was entered to effectively crash the pdf reader and let it run its own code instead.

      A txt could easily contain malware - any file could.

      • @[email protected]
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        51 year ago

        PDF is a complicated format, and the hacking vectors are often thanks to embedded javascript, or vulnerabilities in the parsing libraries.

        ‘avi’ is technically a container format, kind of like ‘zip’, it can contain more than video/audio.

        That said, I’ve been pirating movies since the mid 1990’s and haven’t gotten hacked through a .avi/.mkv/etc. The ‘bad stuff’ was always in a obvious .exe/.bat or some sort of executable, but sometimes named to exploit people, eg ‘foomovie.avi.exe’.

        If in doubt, run your videos using mplayer on Linux and not on Windows, most of that stuff tends to target the easier to exploit and more commonly deployed systems, eg Windows.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          Yesh - the huge majority of malware in relation to piracy is from people deliberately running ‘setup.exe’ from some untrusted source, ignoring or overriding AV warnings and then wondering what went wrong. Its not from movie files and it certainly not from movie files on Linux.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        True. This is something to worry when securing the network of a large corporation & governments. Not for the average pirate

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      More likely is a specific file-naming trick that lets you use right-to-left writing to make a file look like something it’s not. When it’s written backwards, you can make iva.scr look like rcs.avi, and the target will just think it’s a video file when it’s actually an executable. If you’re not paying attention, you may not notice that Windows Explorer shows a .avi extension but lists the file as an executable. Hell, if you open the file directly from your torrent app, it may not even list the file type at all. In effect, it’s not hiding a payload in a video file, just disguising the payload as a video file.

  • AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦
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    241 year ago

    I assume that if I use updated linux, then I’m mostly safe?

    I don’t know why Linux users think they’re completely immune to malware. Yes it’s very unlikely that something gains root access if you run it without super-user privileges, but that program can still access your home folder and look at all your private data.

  • DudeBoy
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    161 year ago

    To my knowledge, Ive never downloaded any malware from a pirated movies/music/books. The possibility is always there when downloading from unverified sources. That said if you stuck to the sites listed in the wiki you should be fine.

  • @[email protected]
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    151 year ago

    Very unlikely but not impossible. Always check the comments when downloading torrents to make sure they are legit.

  • @[email protected]
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    121 year ago

    Someone with that kind of exploit would likely try to target something valuable like big companies, rich people, governments and not you.

  • @[email protected]
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    121 year ago

    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

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      State sponsored hackers are a very small percentage of the threat actors out there. Also - they don’t need to exploit a zero day if you are willingly launching something on your machine.

  • Cevilia (she/they/…)
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    101 year ago

    I would never make assumptions when sailing the high seas! That said - seems kinda unlikely to me. Not impossible. Just unlikely. :)

  • BatteryBunny
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    41 year ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      41 year ago

      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.

  • @tiredofpegging
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    31 year ago

    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.

  • Bear
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    11 year ago

    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.

    • Bear
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      11 year ago

      I meant dodgy stuff from downloading software. Damn autocorrect.