Virus risk??

Asylum*Escapee*Saki · Post by **Asylum*Escapee*Saki** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 11:50 pm

My computer recently contacted a virus, the same day I downloaded my first video off of a-m-v.org. Could that be connected? Does a-m-v.org have any kind of protection against viruses?

Corran · Post by **Corran** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 12:02 am

What video did you download?

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 12:19 am

It's not possible for a video file to contain a virus.

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 12:27 am

Zarxrax wrote:It's not possible for a video file to contain a virus.

They used to say that about Word files, too. As of now, I don't think it's possible. But I rememebr reading something, somewhere, about a concept virus that infected a picture format (.bmp, I think).

Corran · Post by **Corran** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 12:32 am

There have been viruses in Jpegs so I wouldn't doubt avi's or other file types as well.

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 12:43 am

Although there are too many different compression formats to make that a truly viable vector, it could work. In theory.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 1:28 am

Zarxrax wrote:It's not possible for a video file to contain a virus.

Matroska attachments?

Sure, it's not very likely in practice, but in theory it's quite possible.

It's also possible to write a virus that attaches itself to video containers. It'd be damn hard to replicate -- one possible idea would be to write some code into the video stream that would exploit, say, a buffer overflow in XviD, and do some nasty stuff from there -- but that'd be one hell of a hack.

Anyway, back to Earth: I highly doubt that Matroska containers are a major vector of infection these days, so -- yeah, it's not very likely that your system was infected through the .org.

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 10:40 am

trythil wrote:It's also possible to write a virus that attaches itself to video containers. It'd be damn hard to replicate -- one possible idea would be to write some code into the video stream that would exploit, say, a buffer overflow in XviD, and do some nasty stuff from there -- but that'd be one hell of a hack.

Please don't give the dark-siders ideas. They're nasty enough as is.

Asylum*Escapee*Saki · Post by **Asylum*Escapee*Saki** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 4:21 pm

Ok then, domo arigato, minna. I was just worried because I've only had this computer for one to two weeks. Thanks ^_^

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 4:24 pm

Anyway, get an Antivirus program. There are a few good free ones, or you could go for Norton of McAfee or something. Then get a firewall. And installl your OS security updates (windows, I'm assuming). Then switch to text-only email. Disables those nasty imbedded html exploits.