The original client is generally considered safe. However, because it is an older version, it may have unpatched security vulnerabilities. The primary risk comes from downloading patched versions from untrusted sources.
While encryption helped users bypass ISP throttling, it also allowed users to "hide" their traffic from other clients. This caused a schism. Some private trackers (private torrent sites) banned version 1.8 because they feared it would allow users to cheat or hide their upload/download stats. utorrent v181 dht patch full version top
: Users often want to find more seeders when a private tracker has low availability. Critical Risks & Warnings The original client is generally considered safe