Subtitle Files Can Hack Your Computer While You're Enjoying Movies

[athosx1hw]

Do you watch movies with subtitles?

Just last night, I wanted to watch a French movie, so I searched for English subtitles and downloaded it to my computer.

Though that film was excellent, this morning a new research from Checkpoint scared me.

I was unaware that a little subtitle file could hand over full control of my computer to hackers, while I was enjoying the movie.

Yes, you heard that right.

A team of researchers at Check Point has

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vulnerabilities in four of the most popular media player applications, which can be exploited by hackers to infect computers, smart TVs and smartphones with malicious codes inserted into subtitles files.

These four vulnerable media players (mentioned below) have been downloaded more than 220 million times:

• VLC — Popular VideoLAN Media Player
• Kodi (XBMC) — Open-Source Media Software
• Popcorn Time — Software to watch Movies and TV shows instantly
• Stremio — Video Streaming App for Videos, Movies, TV series and TV channels

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[jim87]

I don't think a whole lot of things can be done thru the subtitle executable even if it runs malicious code, taking over your computer sounds like an exaggeration to me. maybe it can do some harm but not that much