Are RAR files safe?

You asked - Are RAR files safe

I think a well known trick will be to disguise a PE or Executable program into another file, a PDF or an archive for example. Since most people rely on the file's icon or extention, it works pretty well on common users. For instance we (the sec folks) disguised a PE file as a pdf (which was actually a vbs file) named im_now_a_daddy_guyz!.pdf.vbs and send it via email to all the company employees, explaining in the mail body how our complice is happy and wanted to share the news. 87% of the company's employees opened it. The following popup showed up on their screen. What if I told you, I could be a real Malware. It was in the scope of a security awareness program.

So yes be careful when running files. If you want to learn how to prevent this, and by the same, how to trust a file before running it, please read this page, start at Is it fake or real? part. Feel free to read the whole article (the 5 parts) . It's well written and accessible to anyone who knows how to type things with a keyboard. This article should teach some basic knowledge about the Malware reverse engineering field.