Full-motion video (FMV) is video playback that shows continuous movement, not just still frames, slides, or animated images. It depends on a codec and a decoder to compress, store, and reconstruct many frames quickly enough for smooth playback. On low-resource devices, FMV can be expensive in CPU, memory, and storage.
In cybersecurity, FMV matters because every video decoder is a parser for untrusted input. Malformed media files can trigger crashes, resource exhaustion, or memory-safety bugs in players, cameras, kiosks, and embedded systems. Defenders reduce risk with format validation, sandboxing, patching, and strict resource limits. Attackers, meanwhile, may use video files as a delivery vehicle for malicious code or as a way to exploit weak media-handling software.