Codecavil.com - DVD Codec  Contained Trojan Horse Virus

A lot of people these days use Torrents (also known as bittorrents), which is now quite a common and well used peer to peer file sharing method between a lot of people.





There are many Torrents which when downloaded (using software such as Vuze, uTorrent etc.) turn out to be what you hope them to be, but there are times unfortunately where they are something completely different, or even worse there can be a virus sitting there waiting to get stuck into your computer.


There are some Torrents which once you have downloaded and played they come up with a message of some sort asking you to visit a certain site to download a codec that it needs to work, some of these can be legitimate, but quite a few codecs downloaded from these sites can contain viruses.

One in paticular is a site called codecavil.com, and after downloading the codec and double clicked the DVD Codec.exe the AVG virus protector came up with a warning (see above) which said this file contained a Trojan Horse (click here for more info on this type of virus), luckily the file could be moved to the virus vault and deleted before it could cause any damage.

Here are some ways to avoid downloading Fake Torrents which end up causing a problem like this:

1. Have Antivirus Software Installed - There are quite a few that are free which do the job nicely:  AVG Anti-Virus, Avast! and Microsoft Security Essentials are a few good examples
2. Check The Size Of The File - This is an easy way of detecting before you even start if a Torrent is a fake,is by the size of the file, for example if the film is three hours long and the file is only 1 MB, then you know it's likely that its not what its supposed to be.
3. Use A Torrent Site With User Comments - You can avoid viruses, as well as quality issues etc. by using a site that allows users to comment on the Torrents they have downloaded. This way if someone reviews a Torrent by saying "Virus! Virus!" then.............it's obvious isn't it :D
4. Use A Reputable Torrent Site - There are loads of Torrent Sites, but not of all of them are a good idea to use. Here are a few that have been recommended by other sites: The Pirate Bay, Kick Ass Torrents and Isohunt