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Is it possible to contract a computer virus from watching a Youtube video?

The question is pretty self-explanatory. Is it possible to contract a computer virus from Youtube?

Also, I didn't know if this was the right place to ask such a question, so if not, I'm sorry.
 

~Ace

i can show you how
No....

silly question to be honest.
 

SkittyOnWailord

☣ⓈⓀⒾⓉⓉⓎⓄⓃⓌⒶⒾⓁⓄⓇⒹ☣
Technically yes. But the whole site would have had to have been hacked and had the pages modded to contain a virus. But I've never heard of Youtube being hacked so it's probably never going to happen.
 
Technically yes. But the whole site would have had to have been hacked and had the pages modded to contain a virus. But I've never heard of Youtube being hacked so it's probably never going to happen.

Finally, a real, detailed answer! Thanks for the help! ^_^
 

M4zz

Banned
I believe it's possible if you're using Youtube Downloader or any other way to get youtube videos to .mp3 format. that would be a result of the virus itself being embedded in the video though.

Tons of the links in the description boxes can lead to malicious sites. The tinyurl ones I believe.
 

GetOutOfBox

Original Series Fan
In short, no. Websites hosted by reliable, well known companies like Google/Microsoft/Apple/etc generally are extremely secure, and have administrators constantly maintaining them. Although it's not unheard of for them to be hacked, such hacks usually only result in down-time, as the web-admins will take down compromised servers immediately upon discovering the intrusion (usually with the assistence of Intrusion-Detection software, like Tripwire). Spreading malware through big websites like those is very rare.

Websites that may be compromised and spread malware for a long period of time/forever are usually smaller, one-man run websites, like fansites. Often such sites are maintained by people lacking in advanced server security knowledge, and hence an intruder may compromise the site without the owners knowledge.

People that believe their computer was infected by big-name websites like Youtube usually received the virus from another website, and the malware merely impacted their use of Youtube, resulting in them believe the problem to have originated from Youtube/Apple.com/etc.
 

PokemonTrainerKaden

Well-Known Member
Yes however it would be from the website. Not from the actual video itself. YouTube is still pretty protected with all that money that they put into their firewalls.
 

Maylu Sakurai

Dawn's ultimate Fan!
the videos No but a ad on the site could have a virus in it (once in awhile a adhost will get some infected ads on there servers)
 
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