Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning we get a small commission if you make a purchase through our links, at no cost to you. For more information, please visit our Disclaimer Page.
There’s a slim chance that your DVD player could get infected by a virus. Here’s the thing; unlike PCs that have both read and write access, most DVD players only have ROMs (Read-Only Memory). With that, it means the players will only allow you to read data out of them without writing anything.
Table of Contents
Is it possible for ADVD player get a virus?
Before addressing this question, here’s what you need to know about DVD players and viruses, below.
What you need to know about viruses
Viruses are self-replicating programs that mostly interfere with a computer, including its hardware, software, and operating system. According to experts, to be able to execute their codes, viruses usually operate by attaching themselves to a real document, especially the one that supports macros. With that, it’s safe to say that viruses need their codes to be understood for them to be executed.
What you need to know about DVD players
DVD players, on the other hand, are devices designed to play DVDs, which are produced under both the DVD-Audio and DVD-Video technical standards. One of the features of a DVD player is that it’s capable of playing DVD-ROM.
In case you don’t know, the Digital Versatile Disc – Read-Only Memory (or DVD-ROM) is a media storage disk that looks exactly like a CD. This ROM is a read-only disc; meaning that only certain information can be read out of it. But it doesn’t allow data to be written on the player.
Apart from that, DVD players only have a simple system, which can only carry out disc commands during playback. Interestingly, as soon as you press stop, the memory of the DVD player automatically resets itself. Furthermore, DVD players have firmware; some of them can’t be updated while others can – with the help of specially-made discs.
Let me pause here and go back to the question regarding whether or not a DVD player could get affected by a virus? There’s no single answer to this question, as it all depends on a couple of factors, such as the type of virus.
DVD players could get corrupted by a virus, no doubt about it. However, this rarely happens and mostly affects a few models. Yes, viruses could corrupt DVD players; this is very possible because these players have firmware. The good news, however, is this rarely happens and only a few DVD models could be slightly affected.
Here’s how a virus could spread to a DVD player
There are a couple of ways that you can transfer viruses to a DVD player. One of them is if you go ahead to burn certain information into a disc from an unreliable source.
Here’s what I’m trying to say; imagine going to download a movie to a network but you failed to scan it using a reliable antivirus. Here, you might burn a virus with the movie into an empty disc. If you end up playing the disc with your player, the virus will be released, which could corrupt your DVD firmware.
Furthermore, you need to remember that DVD players only have read-only access; they don’t have any write access to files. It means there’s a little chance that viruses will be written on your DVD player. This explains why I earlier mentioned that there’s a slim chance that a virus could corrupt your player and affect its firmware.
Most modern DVD players are designed to support USB memory. The good news is that it’s impossible to have viruses corrupt and affect your DVD player if you attach a USB memory stick, which has viruses, to the Drive.
The bottom line is that there’s a slim chance that viruses could affect your DVD player. That’s so because most DVD players only have read-only access. They are without write access; as such, it becomes pretty difficult for viruses to be written on them.
Can movie DVDs or music CDs carry a virus?
Depending on a couple of factors, such as the hardware you’re using and the type of Disc in question, a movie DVD or music CD can carry a virus.
For instance, a writeable format DVD or CD can always be infected by a virus. Here’s how that’s possible below:
- When you insert a writable format audio CD into your PC, it can carry a virus. It’s pretty simple; this type of disc can always be written, read, erased, and re-written.
- By putting the writable disc inside your PC disc drive, you can use it to copy or download vital information on your computer. During the process of having the information written on the disc, malware can also be written on the disc.
- If that happens, the malware will most likely corrupt the disc, rendering it useless for other PCs. Yes, it’ll read errors when inserted into another PC disc drive.
However, you need to understand that, unlike the writable format discs, commercially produced Music CDs and Video DVDs don’t carry viruses with them. This is simply because of their format; they are read-only discs. You can neither write nor erase & re-write your data on them.
As such, there’s no way viruses can be added to the discs.
The bottom line is a movie DVD or music CD can always carry a virus, depending on a couple of factors. One of them is if the disc was initially a writable format disc and later used to burn movies or music from sources that carry viruses.
Can a virus spread through a DVD?
As previously mentioned, certain CDs and DVDs can always carry a virus for a long period. Unfortunately, if these discs aren’t carefully handled, they may end up spreading the virus on them to your system. Yes, a virus can surely spread through a digital versatile disc.
There are a couple of ways that you can follow to prevent the spread of viruses through your DVDs. One of them is that you need to avoid using scan the discs. However, before doing that, ensure to disable Autoplay first. This way, you can always prevent the disc from playing as soon as you insert it into the disc drive.
Once you’re sure the Autoplay feature has been disabled, you can go ahead to insert the suspect media. After that, the next thing you need is to take advantage of every antivirus and malware scanner on your system to scan the disc.
- To scan the disc, locate and block on “My Computer” or “My PC.”
- After that, locate the disc you’re looking to scan and right-click on it. Next, you’ll see a couple of options, look and select the one that says “Scan selected item for viruses.”
- As I earlier mentioned, ensure to use all the powerful antivirus on your system to scan the disc. Once you’re certain the virus has been removed, you can go ahead and open the disc and copy everything you’d like to have from it.
The bottom line is that a virus can always spread through DVDs. This explains why it’s important to scan your DVD every time before going ahead to use it on your system.
Why do CDs and DVDs not get affected by every type of viruses
First, you need to understand that some CDs and DVDs, especially the ones with a writable format, do get affected by viruses.
As for the commercially produced CDs and DVDs, there are a couple of reasons they don’t get affected by every type of viruses. One of them is because they are ROMs (or Read-only Memory). And since that’s the case, there’s no way virus codes can be written on them.