Fonts, security risk?

GreenNeonWhale · n00b Joined: 30 Mar 2016 Posts: 45

I'm considering using one or more of the free font websites on-line to download a few fonts that I would like. Should I be concerned about malware in the font files themselves? (I will be copying the files manually and NOT using any kind of installer.) Any insight would be much appreciated. Thank you!

Hund · Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2020 6:22 am Post subject:

I researched the subject and I couldn't find much about it. It seems to be an issue more for Microsoft Windows.

if you're worried I would try to use typefaces from the repositories and from sources that you can trust.

And yes, it's called typeface, not font. :) A font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface.
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Banana · l33t Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 746 Location: Germany

you could use your own offline virus scanner or use a online one. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload
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Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 16462

Historically, font libraries were not hardened against ill-formed fonts because the fonts were assumed to be approved by the administrator. That does not mean that a font library is necessarily susceptible to malware. It may mean simply that the ill-formed font can be used to cause the font library to crash, but not run code. Depending on the circumstances, that can still be a very annoying failure mode.

GreenNeonWhale · n00b Joined: 30 Mar 2016 Posts: 45

Hund, Banana, & Hu,

Thank you for your replies, and insight.

I think that I'll probably go ahead and pull the typeface files, and then run a couple of anti-virus packages against them just to be sure.