Is it possible to get a virus from a music download?

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

Yep... I have seen computers that have been using lime wire to download all sorts of stuff and very quickly got infected with Spywear, in one case it was spyfalcon 2.0 very very nasty indeed. but is could probably be one of hundreds or thousands of spywear infections. Lime Wire is an absolute NO NO NO NO if you want to avoid getting spywear on your computer. But this begs lots of questions, one is where exactly can you get MP3 downloads from that is safe from Spyweare Malweare and Viruses. We will be investigating.. this quite a bit...
go here: http://www.chephrenrepairs.com/antivirus.htm
and here http;//www.chephrenrepairs.com We will be writing quite a bit about this over the coming months and years, why because people very much want to know how to get music downloads safely...

how do you get a virus off a ipod suffle for good

I deleted the files and the virus is still on the ipod suffle

It is not possible as of yet, to embed executable code into a MP3 file. Same goes for all other audio formats. The MP3 format can contain macro code which is read and 'run' by the associated program, but because of a few reasons, it has not been possible to embed any type of virus into these macro strings. Limewire is actually very safe to use, bearing in mind you know how to check for file size and TYPE. Such as downloading a music file with the MP3, WMA or RM extension and not the horrendous amount of EXE search string latchers. As for attaching a virus to another file, this is easy and possible. However, once again, you can NOT run it when attached to a music file which remains in MP3 format. It must first be attached, and the file changed to EXE format to be run as a program, therefore executing the code. Don't be fooled by files with elongated names. Such examples of this are anything that says '.jpg','.mp3','.wma'...etc etc, with a few tens of hundreds of periods thereafter, followed by the obvious .EXE. Remember kids, use your heads!

I have just had the same problem with something erasing all of my music and everything else from my ipod. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Just for the record... I was downloading some music from limewire with an .mp3 extension, and my AVG Free picked it up as having an embedded trojan.

From what I've read on other forums, and from my own personal knowledge of computers, a file does not just have to be an .EXE to contain a virus. Every file is code, and that code is run by any program that is associated with it... If a certain file, being an .exe, .jpg, .gif, .mp3 has embedded code that can exploit (take advantage of) the program that it is intended to run in, then that file is deemed harmful.

You can never be too safe.

And yes...ANYTHING is possible.

HELP! My Ipod 40 GB has crashed and I found out it was because I had many songs on my itunes that were infected with viruses. Yes, yes, they are mostly from Limewire, some are from CD's I've purchased. But, my friend showed me how to scan the songs, and so I did and deleted any that were infected and I have downloaded more songs but before I hook up any Ipod to sinc it again, I will again scan the songs FIRST. Well, my 40 GB Ipod is still crashed and I can't seem to restore it. Is there any way that I can fix it to again download the now scanned songs back into my Ipod? If anyone has any ideas, please help! I don't have a lot of experience with technical computer tasks, and many of the young kids I work with have been helping me, but even they don't know what I should do to fix my Ipod now. I have to save up to buy another Ipod, but I don't even want to do that if this will and can happen again if I don't have all the viruses and attachments gone out of my computer where I have my songs. I've read that someone here who commented had lost 2 Ipod's. So, Leo...do you have any advice for what I should do now??? Thanks, Littleleslie

i have only downloaded about 3 songs on limewire. 2 of them were viruses. one was so bad i had to reformat to get rid of the cheeky bugger. and it was definitely a MP3 extension (not exe). AVG didn't pick up on it until too late. Luckily the second virus was picked up by Kaspersky when i clicked 'play'. That was a good little investment. but in any case, i think its best not to play the song (in limewire or by external players) until you scan the file first. Then remember where you got it from and send the file holder a polite message.

Just like me i got spyware in the limewire download, it is so hard to deleate the spyware and the one major chance is to reformat it so i take my mind to reformat my pc so that it will be deleted so gud luck to you guys if u will downlod a song!

To post a comment on "Is it possible to get a virus from a music download?", please return to that article's main page.