Stupid question but is it possible to get a virus from an MKV file that is less than 24 hours old. I was streamed using VLC version 3.0.20 form the repose on Linux.
Every once in a while security researchers would discover sophisticated exploits that would allow malwares to take over your computer via multimedia files, but those are actually rarely exploited in the wild by run off the mill malwares.
Unless you’re an important person being targeted by hackers and three letter agencies, your biggest source of threat is running infected programs from untrusted sources, e.g. cracks downloaded from random torrents or warez sites, shady sites serving ads that trick you to run some executables, etc.
I really hate to be “that person”, but..........it’s “run of the mill”, not “run off the mill”, friend.
It’s a term from the late 1800s that refers to “manufactured goods not graded or sorted for quality—that is, a mill’s products before they’ve been separated according to what will sell for how much.” (Source for quote: https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/where-does-run-of-the-mill-come-from)
Seriously, I’m not trying to be a grammar nazi here. Unless of course that was just autocorrect being a dick, in which case I’ll go walk off a cliff now… :/
Thank you for the correction!
Of course. :) I love learning about etymology and stuff, but I understand language is an evolving phenomenon so I try not to be a dick. Lol, hopefully, I succeeded.
I thought I was wrong about the phrase for a minute
That’s really interesting. Thanks :)
Of course. :)
Wild that people have ESCAPED VMs… but yeah that’s not happening on my boring ass’s computer
Definitely no, viruses need 48-72 hours of incubation before the .mkv host becomes contagious. If the file is <24 hours old, I’d look for another source.
If you’re worried your computer might be infected, you should consider swapping your case LEDs with UV lights to purify your system.
Fucking genius 🤣🤣
This made my day 😁
someone please correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that for it to be possible, the application that plays the mkv file would have to have a remote execution exploit and the code for the virus would be executed through the player. the player would be required to have elevated privileges. I think this is exceptionally unlikely for vlc
The player does not have to be elevated. With an unelevated player the file exploiting such a vuln would be able to execute code with the privileges and access of the player
You’re probably fine it’s extremely unlikely. Dont trust emails that say they recorded you wanking its a scam
Send them back a clip of you wanking to their email.
Your wife is not going to believe it bud.
Like someone else said, it’s unlikely. However it is possible but it would need to exploit your media player (VLC) and/or your OS. As long as your source is trustworthy you shouldn’t have to worry, that’s why the megathread is there.
The mkv file wasn’t form a trustworthy source.
As others have said, it’s technically possible, but it would extremely difficult and would require coordinating a lot of different variables which is extremely unlikely. I’m not sure there’s actually ever been an example of this type of attack outside of a lab.
Absolutely yes. Even if it is not disguised executable.
It could contain an exploit which targets the video player you are opening it with.
There’s imho no stupid questions regarding personal cyber-security. There are only things we don’t know yet.
theoretically… but no.
Not really, but you can get a virus from movie.mkv.exe, which will probably show up in windows as “movie.mkv” but will actually run a program.
That being said, I’ve never actually seen this in the wild and it was mainly talked about in the mp3 era.
Afaik, it’s possible for any file to be infected with a virus. Videos themselves can be, and .MKV is a container of other files (video, audio, subtitles). The video source, audio source or even .txt containing the subtitles could be a malicious virus inside the container.
In theory, you could make a fake executable with the mkv file extension on a unix system, by making it a shell script with a bunch of garbage data at the end, marking it executable, and distributing it with a tarball. But the chances someone will do that is insanely low.
Also it has caveats:
- It’d rely on your double clicking it, and having your file manager not warning you about it.
- Video players wouldn’t run the shell script code, if it’d run the file at all.
You’re on linux? The odds of you getting a virus on linux are not 0 but very slim, since the userbase is very small.
Plus, viruses prey on people’s ignorance. The usual “movie file viruses” are .exe files and can only be run on windows. Most people don’t enable the option to show file extensions on windows, so a filed named “movie.mkv.exe” would show up as “movie.mkv” instead.
IMO, the odds of you accidentally running a virus by playing a .mkv file on linux are as high as the odds of you winning the lottery 3 times in a row.
Thanks for the reassurance. I won’t worry about it. After some thought, I also believe it’s unlikely some one have embed zero-day exploits into a movie torrent from LimeTorrent.
Just make sure the file doesn’t have a double extension. That can trick people into running a .exe when the file extension is hidden. That’s really only a problem on windows though.
In general media files can be formed in a way to trigger some bug in the media player, sometimes in ways that allow to overflow buffers and start ROP chaining.
About 8 years ago there was this media file going around crashing any iPhones that tried to play it with the integrated player.
Of course crashing is way easier than code execution. So overall your scenario is unlikely. VLC also does not yet know of any issues with 3.0.20: https://www.videolan.org/security/
When was the last time VLC paid $50K USD for a proper security audit?
Probably never?
Next you’re gonna be judging cars on their ability to float.
Open source follows an entirely different risk model (and arguably much more effective than throwing money at greedy companies)
