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Could downloading Tumblr videos damage/infect Mac?

R

Rodercik

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 16, 2017
11
2
I have downloaded quite some Tumblr videos, both cat videos, funny clips, porn.
I downloaded them manually, you can save them with right click and save-as with right method - no download program used.

I have old external hard drive where I keep them, downloaded both in Mac and in Windows. After clean install (due to technical issues not malware), I was going to put my collection back to fresh Mac, but heard these videos could contain malicious code/trojans/malware?

Haven't done it for a month now - likely never will again just in case - but it would be pity to delete them all so... do I have to for security reasons?

My question is - how likely could videos downloaded from Tumblr be malicious?
After all, it is one platform for many different blogs - cat videos, funny clips, porn - they are all uploaded to same server so how likely is they can be infected by
a) uploader
b) tumblr itself?
 
Last edited:
It is certainly possible that they contain malicious code. Any kind of file has to be interpreted by a program (like a media player) and if there are any vulnerabilities in such a program, then it is sometimes possible to craft a file specifically to exploit such a vulnerability.

In practice, you will rarely encounter such files and Apple frequently addresses such vulnerabilities in OS and security updates.
 
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KALLT said:
It is certainly possible that they contain malicious code. Any kind of file has to be interpreted by a program (like a media player) and if there are any vulnerabilities in such a program, then it is sometimes possible to craft a file specifically to exploit such a vulnerability.

In practice, you will rarely encounter such files and Apple frequently addresses such vulnerabilities in OS and security updates.
Click to expand...

Thank you!
This reminds me, what about webm files? Is the likelihood of those having infections harmful for Mac exactly the same as with videos or images?
 
The risk is the same. macOS has no out-of-the-box support for WebM, but some third-party browsers do. The same applies to them: vulnerabilities can exist in the software that interprets, decodes and renders the WebM format. A maliciously crafted WebM file can exploit such a vulnerability.

Here is an example of this, a vulnerability in the libvpx codec library that Chrome and Firefox use for decoding WebM: https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/viewAlert.x?alertId=40466.
 
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KALLT said:
The risk is the same. macOS has no out-of-the-box support for WebM, but some third-party browsers do. The same applies to them: vulnerabilities can exist in the software that interprets, decodes and renders the WebM format. A maliciously crafted WebM file can exploit such a vulnerability.

Here is an example of this, a vulnerability in the libvpx codec library that Chrome and Firefox use for decoding WebM: https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/viewAlert.x?alertId=40466.
Click to expand...

And saving (and playing them in Mac with VLP Player) webm files from image boards possesses same amount of risk as saving image and gif files? Basically, no need to worry more about saved webm files than I worry about saved image files?

(Webm files are still kind of new for me so I didn't know how to view them - more dangerous than images and videos or same)
 
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