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There are some torrrents showing up with .lnkextension (ex: movie.mp3.lnk, tvshow.mkv.lnk...) and automated software (Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, qBittorrent RSS Downloader) could pick those torrents (but not import).

These (fake) torrents include a .lnk file that executes a script on your Windows


HOW TO exclude from download on qBittorrent.

  • Go to Options -> Downloads

  • Enable "Exclude file names"

  • Add patterns:

(one by line)

*.mp4.lnk  
*.mp3.lnk  
*.mkv.lnk
*.torrent.lnk 

Or exclude all together: *.lnk


Example on VirusTotal https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/e74f64df6ebaf3a1b6e3f42591eb6e87d2ac2828eb5a99fd8d3d82c140137fc9/detection

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[-] woodgen@lemm.ee 3 points 2 hours ago

that executes a script on your Windows.

I don't have a Windows.

[-] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 35 points 1 day ago

Not using Windows helps a ton :)

[-] American_Jesus@lemm.ee 11 points 1 day ago

Sonarr will still pick the release and download GBs of malware, and if you don't notice your download directly is filled with GBs of fake torrents

[-] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 137 points 1 day ago

thanks Microsoft for hiding extensions by default!

[-] ad_on_is@lemm.ee 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Microsoft: De nada, amigo! Oh... here's an ad, btw... and...did you enable Recall already?

[-] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 3 points 10 hours ago

Have you tried setting your region to Europe? it's not an issue here

[-] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 8 points 20 hours ago

or rather: oh silly you were so clumsy that you disabled recall by accident again. let us be so kind to re-enable it for you

[-] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yes, but also whoever set the defaults for the *arr tools. Why would any filename with extra shit past the extensions you're looking for be considered an acceptable result?

Tack $ on the end of your regex, for fucks sake.

[-] American_Jesus@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Is not regex
https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/pull/17106

Examples
*.exe: filter '.exe' file extension.
readme.txt: filter exact file name.
?.txt: filter 'a.txt', 'b.txt' but not 'aa.txt'.
readme[0-9].txt: filter 'readme1.txt', 'readme2.txt' but not 'readme10.txt'

[-] N0x0n@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

For those interested, John Hammond did a video a few months ago about .lnk extension (and other 16 hidden extensions on Windows).

He doesn't go to much or to deep into the subject, but you get a general view how this could be exploitable.

YouTube link

Piped Link

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 84 points 1 day ago
[-] CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee 78 points 1 day ago

What if it executes and install Windows 11 on your machine!?

[-] black0ut@pawb.social 32 points 1 day ago

Oh lord please have mercy! Blacklisting the file extension right now!

[-] Trent@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 day ago

That would be the very worst malware. I mean both the malware that installed it and win11...

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 8 points 1 day ago

ackshually the proprietary .lnk shortcut format can only be run on windows 🤓

[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

A Linux executable can't be named ending on .lnk? 🤔🤔

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 1 day ago

Making such a polyglot that can run on both systems requires much more effort for little gain.

[-] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

But its not lnk but an executable that needs to be excecuted manually?

[-] American_Jesus@lemm.ee 24 points 1 day ago

Me too, but don't want to download GBs of malware and bandwidth

[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Weak.
Harbor disaster. Seed the malware. Spread the fruits of chaos amongst the unworthy. Be complicit in their downfall. Feed on their agony ^^/s

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 0 points 1 day ago

.lnk files are less than 4kb

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 1 day ago

That would seem suspicious. I'm sure they have some way to pad out the size.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

Anyone paying attention to size would probably also notice they're just .lnk files.

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 1 day ago

Not necessarily. Even with "hide extensions" unchecked, Windows hides the .lnk extension by default; it just shows an arrow in the bottom-right corner of the icon, which is plausibly missed when in the list view. I'm surprised antivirus doesn't know about it already tbh.

[-] American_Jesus@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Not these ones, some could have more than 1GB, look at the virustotal link, the file had 422MB.

Also Sonarr/Radarr filter torrents by size

Here some examples
https://bt4gprx.com/search?q=The.Lord.of.The.Rings.The.Rings.of.Power.S02E08

Those where posted on 1337x (and removed) and probably other sites, Sonarr can pick those based on release name and torrent size

PS: had to rename the fine from .lnk to .com so virustotal could accept

[-] dsilverz@thelemmy.club 51 points 1 day ago

When I read the title, I was thinking of something sophisticated such as hidden executable streams inside the MKV container (IIRC, it's possible to append binary data other than audio, video or subtitles specifically inside a MKV). The ".lnk" trick only works in Windows and, even there, it's easy to prevent: Windows Explorer > Options > Advanced > find and check "Always show extensions for files" (i can't really remember the exact label for this option as I'm not a Windows user, but something like this will be there).

[-] cosmic_skillet@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 day ago

I believe you uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types"

[-] dsilverz@thelemmy.club 9 points 1 day ago

Exactly! Thanks! I couldn't point the exact label, I've been using Linux for years in a daily basis so I forgot most of the Windows shortcuts/options.

[-] brainw0rms@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago

Even then, that setting doesn't unhide the ".lnk" file extension, that requires a registry edit: https://www.askvg.com/tip-how-to-show-file-extensions-of-shortcuts-lnk-url-pif-in-windows-explorer/

Although shortcuts are pretty easy to spot in the first place unless you just double-click things without paying attention lol

[-] bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net 35 points 1 day ago

You gotta love how aggressively they prevent users from seamlessly running executables from the internet, a VERY legitimate common use case, but a desktop shortcut from the internet? Run away!

[-] turkalino@lemmy.yachts 28 points 1 day ago

Yet another reminder that piracy on Linux is the way because new files don’t have execute permissions by default

[-] American_Jesus@lemm.ee 11 points 1 day ago

On many distros will open with WINE by default, not a big deal, you can just delete ~/.wine. If it does anything

[-] Kuvwert@lemm.ee 17 points 1 day ago
[-] can@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago

That's mentioned near the bottom of the post.

[-] LostXOR@fedia.io 4 points 1 day ago

Also make sure you have file extensions enabled in Explorer, it makes it waaay harder for something like this to work.

[-] Lojcs@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago

How is the link file executing malware? Can you put any shell script as the target?

[-] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago

You can put the script itself as the link. Shortcut to: powershell -command "Write-Host 'Gonna pwn your shit'"

[-] LordeMostarda@lemmy.eco.br 10 points 1 day ago

I am pretty sure a link file can open cmd/powershell with parameters to execute commands

[-] montar@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 hours ago

yep! I've found out browsing hacking/spamming site and i've found something too good to be true, it downloaded archive nested inside other archive and in it was silngle .lnk file leading to "the resource". Peeking inside i've found powershell executing base64 (or base32?) encoded script (it's got commandline option for that. if you want to ask wtf ask microsoft, and tell me), it dl'd some exe from some site and ran it, site was down alredy.

Is that the malware that is undetectable because it runs purely in memory? The name is escaping me

[-] Nexy@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 day ago

Nice to know! Thank you!

this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
214 points (98.6% liked)

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