Can an MP3 file contain virus?

[watdahel]

I'm gonna fix my friends virus infected computer and I want to save as much of his data as possible. My concern is can MP3 files be infected by a virus?

 

[Nothinman]

It would be possible but the MP3 would have to be crafted to take advantage of an exploit in a specific player and I've never heard of anyone doing that so far.

 

[mechBgon]

One of my co-workers had some audio files which were detected as exploits by Kaspersky antivirus. Off the top of my head, I don't remember their file format, but it appears he'd gotten them from a P2P network.

Since they do seem to be out there, you might want to check the files with the Kaspersky scanner and a couple of online antivirus scanners as a precaution, and use the Secunia software checker to ensure that the system is fully up-to-date once you're done with the rebuild, to eliminate known vulnerabilities.

 

[MustISO]

WinAMP has had a few exploits that were patched so it is possible to exploit the player.

 

[watdahel]

So I should be good as long as I delete the ID3 tag to be sure. Isn't there a program that can replace the ID3 tags automatically so all the files have uniform ID3 tags.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: erwin1978
So I should be good as long as I delete the ID3 tag to be sure. Isn't there a program that can replace the ID3 tags automatically so all the files have uniform ID3 tags.

If the system was virus-infected, I hope you're scanning everything with several antivirus scanners as a precaution, regardless.

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: erwin1978
Isn't there a program that can replace the ID3 tags automatically so all the files have uniform ID3 tags.

id3-tag it

 

[Nothinman]

ID3 tags aren't all you have to worry about if you are indeed worrying. Most MPEG decoders will process garbage data, either skipping it until they find the next valid MPEG header or playing it, so malicious code could be hidden anywhere inside of the file.