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I downloaded Youtube videos, but found out just now it is illegal. I thought that if Mozilla page has add-on for that, it must be legal!

Could Youtube videos be infected? Could Youtube infect them to punish illegal downloading? I removed the add-on - should I delete those videos too to be safe?

If I use AVAST, Emsisoft Anti-Malware, Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware Free Edition, will I be safe and find anything there is?

I'll never download anything from Youtube ever again!

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    Possible duplicate of Malware infections from visiting or using YouTube
    – Sjoerd
    Jan 19, 2017 at 14:40
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    Google purposely infecting people seems unlikely. It's criminal.
    – schroeder ♦
    Jan 19, 2017 at 14:42
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    @schroeder on the other hand, untrusted plugins may infect OP's system,
    – Jedi
    Jan 19, 2017 at 14:43
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    @thel3l 'definitely allowed'? Really? I'd love to see a source on that wild assumption.
    – schroeder ♦
    Jan 19, 2017 at 15:17
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    you have to download them to watch them so that can't really be illegal. it might be against the terms of service to "manually manage cache", but it's not illegal, unless you share things you don't own. Is TIVO illegal? of course not... Also, video files are not executable, so they are terrible vectors that only sporadically and temporarily offer any kind of ingress into vulnerable applications, before those applications patch the bug that allowed code execution.
    – dandavis
    Jan 19, 2017 at 18:40

1 Answer 1

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To answer your 4 questions :

  • Could (downloaded) Youtube videos be infected?

Technically, yes, even if it is quite unlikely. In such a case a malicious video could infect you if it targets a specific player (and possibly a specific version). In such a case, a malicious actor would have uploaded a video in the hopes that someone downloads it and then plays it with a vulnerable version of a specific player. Please note that technical treatments occur on Google's (Youtube's) side - such treatments could easily destroy the malicious content.

  • Could Youtube infect them to punish illegal downloading?

Technically, yes, but that would be illegal

  • I removed the add-on - should I delete those videos too to be safe?

To be lawful (and have morals), you should delete the videos for which you do not own the rights, if the videos you downloaded are protected. However if we are talking about being technically safe from infections, as mentioned in a previous bullet the chances that the videos contain working malicious code are slim. If you want risk-zero, delete them, even if the chances are very low

  • If I use AVAST, Emsisoft Anti-Malware, Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware Free Edition, will I be safe and find anything there is?

Not necessarily. AV's cannot detect everything.

As comments pointed out, it is good to note that the add-on that you used could have triggered an infection. It is always a good idea to be very careful when downloading browser add-ons / extensions, especially if they are used for possibly illegal purposes (which means that there is a slightly higher chance that the add-on author is malicious)

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  • Could Youtube infect them to punish illegal downloading? Why would this be illegal? It's their own files that they choose to infect, let's think of it as a DRM of types. You illegally downloading them doesn't make it their fault.
    – thel3l
    Jan 19, 2017 at 14:50
  • Agreed, although I would emphasize the fact that this is nearly impossible. This way of fighting piracy just doesn't make any sense. If you got infected it was probably due to something else, hell even the Firefox addon would be more likely to infect you than google.
    – r41n
    Jan 19, 2017 at 14:53
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    Purposely infecting users, even if they are doing illegal activities regarding your products, is against the law (EU for sure, USA 99% sure.. ;) ).
    – niilzon
    Jan 19, 2017 at 14:53
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    @thel3l This would be a question for legal.se, but, in general, courts don't agree with that sort of reasoning. Philosophical disagreement with vigilantism, and the risk of affecting the innocent (consider people using programs to help the disabled, for instance) are the general reasons
    – crovers
    Jan 19, 2017 at 14:53
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    @the3l To take the US for example, 18 USC 1030(a) says that YouTube cannot "knowingly cause the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally cause damage without authorization, to a protected computer," [(5)(A)] or even "obtain information" from a protected computer [(2)(C)]. A computer is "protected" more or less if it has ever connected to the Internet, and the word "intentionally" can be a general intent (e.g. if you write a computer virus you "intended" to infect everyone it propagated to, not just the first-infected computer).
    – CR Drost
    Jan 19, 2017 at 16:38

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