Why are my MKV videos from Pahe now flagged in Windows Defender (Win 10) with a 'Security Warning'? - eviltoast

I just tried opening a video I had gotten from Pahe many years ago, from an external USB drive, and have now gotten a Windows Security warning, ‘Do you want to open this file?’ (see top part of attached image)

I moved the file to another folder and renamed it from the original title (it was an episode of ‘The Blacklist’) to 'Movie.mkv and still get the warning. All files in the folder (22 of them) give this warning, plus some other videos I got from Pahe in the past. Clicking the checkbox ‘always ask before opening this file’ does not keep other files in the same folder from also showing the warning. I tried changing the default video player to PotPlayer, same warning comes up.

The only thing I can think of is that in the metadata of the file (bottom part of image), under ‘Encoded By’, it shows a URL, ‘pahe (DOT) in and pahe (DOT) li’

Is there any way this could actually be a security issue? If not, is there a way to ‘green light’ my MKV files on my local drives?

Thanks in advance

  • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    What’s the actual warning? Is is the one about “do you really trust this file you found online?” or is it Windows Defender saying it’s infected?

    It could potentially recognize from the metadata that the files were downloaded from the internet, but I’m not sure why it would do it to just a video file.

    I tend to get warnings for things I install from the internet, not just video files I’ve downloaded.

    • phx@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It could also be an actual infected file that wasn’t caught by AV before, but is with updated signatures. That or the current signatures could have a false positive. It happens