Are Attachments Safe to Open?

[RappyFood]

I wanted to open an attachment to a post in order to understand the question that the author was posing.

I didnt open it because I am unsure of the safety of opening zip files like that. Although my AV definitions are current, I do not keep up with the latest exploits.

Any comments?


RappyFood

 

[PlausiblyDamp]

As a rule opening the zip file itself shouldnt be a problem, and if the archive contains safe files such as source code or images you should be fine.

Other filetypes such as word or excel documents however might be unsafe and as such we discourage their use here. The zip should not contain any executable code anyway (.exe or .dll) and if it does a mod or admin will normally remove them.

Having a decent AV that is kept up to date is always a sensible precaution as nothing is ever 100% safe on the internet despite peoples best intentions.