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

  • Daemon Silverstein
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    3 months 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).