I’m seeing thepiratebay org is discouraged because it has lots of viruses due to lack of moderation. I was wondering how could an mp4 or an mkv etc. could be harmful? Are people talking about executable stuff?

  • helpimnotdrowning@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    16·
    1 year ago

    yes, it’s mostly things like games or software

    though, I have seen more & more reports of people finding malicious disguised LNK files in their downloads and torrents, which will run some arbitrary command if you open that: Windows does not ever show the LNK extension, so a file could be named “<whatever>.mkv.lnk”, and you would only know if you checked the “file type” column in Explorer (which would read “Shortcut” instead of something like “Matryoshka file”), or when you see the cmd.exe window flicker open and close.

    bonus edit: LNK is the native file extension that Windows uses to link app shortcuts, such as the shortcuts on your desktop.

    • Quail4789@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      Aah okay, thanks. Yeah, I’m on Linux already and only ever view files from a client that only shows media files. I’ve found some more recommended alternatives and will use them going forward. I was just looking to see if I should delete the stuff I had from tpb but doesn’t seem necessary.

      • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Link files will show the .lnk extension on Linux and it should be obvious from the icon that it’s not a video file. If you have wine installed, then double clicking one will run it and malware can still cause problems when run in wine.

        If your torrent client has the option to run a script or command when a download completes, you could have it delete all .lnk files in the download directory. Something like find /path/to/my/download/directory -type f -iname "*.lnk" -delete would work.