Can trackers give you malware?

[vaynardx]

Im just curious, I only download movie files over the internet. When I get the red down arrow sign(the one where you cant connect to trackers), is it safe? I mean it doesnt give you malware or anything?

[moogly]

No, it's an error message about the tracker. What is it?

Torrents are globally safe, it depends on you and what you download (eg: keygens, cracks etc have chances to be more infected than a simple movie).

In addition, µT doesn't check your torrents are infected or not, that's the role of your AV.

[vaynardx]

Well I only download movies and jpegs, and I scan them with avira before I open them. So you mean to say that its perfectly safe? It's just the content you're downloading that MAYBE infected, not the trackers?

[moogly]

The tracker (or some evil-minded users) can publish malformed .torrents to exploit some vulnerabilities (known or hidden) in your BT client but it's very rare with popular public trackers and serious private trackers.

In addition if your client µT is up-to-date, that reduces the risk.

Honestly, the major source of infection is downloading suspicious files like cracked programs or keygens.

[vaynardx]

^

I always use the up to date version of utorrent. And I do not download crack or keygens. Anyway, thanks for the fast reply.