HN Explorer

Can viruses infect your music and other files?

2 points by jhacks ↗ HN
I got a virus (somewhat nasty one - RootKit.0Access.h) and I am going to clean install my computer. However, there are some files (mainly music) that I never backed up before getting infected. Am I safe to just back these up now and transfer them?

I'm just not 100% familiar with how/where the virus might spread and if your personal files can carry the infection to the newly installed system.

Help appreciated. Thanks!

2 comments

[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 29.1 ms ] thread
seven
In theory malicious software could do that in some cases.

Lets take videos as an example. If you are using a media player with an error that could be exploited to execute program code that is embedded inside a prepared (read: modified by the malicious software) video file, this could be one vector of re-infection.

kaolinite
Just what I was about to put. Keep in mind however that this is pretty unlikely, though perhaps it'd be worth Googling the name of the malware to see if it behaves like this. Alternatively you could scan the music, etc, with a virus scanner - they can often find files infected in this way.