.torrent extension

[wagnerferreira 0]

Hello guys, I would like to congratulate you for the great job and take the opportunity to ask a quick question. Can a .torrent file downloaded from a very suspicious website bring risks to my machine?

[itman 1,740]

A good analogy is playing Russian roulette. The odds of you being shot when you pull the trigger depends on where the gun chamber containing the bullet ends up after spinning the chamber housing.

Only thing known for sure is if you keep pulling the gun trigger, you will eventually be shot.

Edited July 20, 2020 by itman

[wagnerferreira 0]

Thanks itman, good analogy. But I don't think I was clear. The file downloaded via the torrent can be dangerous, but can the .torrent extension contain something dangerous? I see that nowadays even .jpg can contain a virus or malware and not just executables.

Edited July 20, 2020 by wagnerferreira

[itman 1,740]

10 minutes ago, wagnerferreira said:

The file downloaded via the torrent can be dangerous, but can the .torrent extension contain something dangerous?

It depends if uTorrent sets up a Win file association for .torrent files to itself. Then they can only directly be run by uTorrent.

On the other hand, the file downloaded might really be named malware.exe.torrent. Unless you had the hidden files setting enabled in Win Explorer, all you would see is malware.torrent.

Finally, Eset scans all files on download. File extension use is immaterial as such.

[wagnerferreira 0]

Got it, thanks for the reply