Torrents and Malware
So I downloaded a video using a torrent client, its size was around 2GB. Its an episode of an ongoing show so its name and file format didn't seem suspicious because by default it was marked as a VLC openeable along with the rest of the videos that I downloaded previously.
After downloading I clicked on it to watch the video but the file explorer kinda got stuck, the rest of the PC was fine. It took me like 10 seconds when I saw that it was not infact a .MKV file and instead marked as "system application". The file had the VLC icon so didnt even check before running it.
I panicked and cut off the power to my PC, this all happened within 10 seconds btw. I rebooted and the pc did turn on. Things I did after that-
- Ran a scan with windows defender
- Ran another scan with windows defender (offline mode)
- Checked inside defender if the malware had added any exceptions and checked if anything was turned off by it.
Windows defender didnt find anything.
Things I have on my PC win11 always
- I run Shutup10/11 so many of the background bloatware on windows are turned off by default anyways.
- My PC also has been debloated previously.
Now am worried my PC might be compromised but cant seem to find any other way to check how. May be me turning off the power prevented the malware to spread properly? What else can I do to check if my pc is compromised?
Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks and apologies if this is not the place to ask, I dont see any other big pc community with so many people in reddit.
Posted Feb 23, 2026, 6:11 AM UTC