Hackers target torrent downloads of Game of Thrones
Friday, 5 April 2019
Winter is coming (for torrenters). Hackers are disproportionately targeting users who download Game of Thrones to infect PCs with malicious software.
The news comes after antivirus heavyweight Kaspersky Labs released research showing which TV torrents contained the most malicious files.
The AV company looked at volunteer customer data and checked the volume of malware relating to torrented TV shows. Game of Thrones topped the list of malicious TV torrents, with other popular shows The Walking Dead, Arrow, Suits and Vikings also featuring strongly.
Kaspersky Labs' findings also show that 126,340 users were infected with TV-torrent-based malware in 2018. The good news is that total attempted attacks were down 22 per cent year-on-year to 451,636.
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But these figures are slightly misleading. On the face of it, they appear to suggest that torrent malware is on the slide. This definitely isn't the case.
A much more likely explanation is that they're the direct result of search engines downranking torrent sites, last year. Combine that, with the undeniable fact that torrenting is being replaced by popular, and legal, ways to watch TV series via services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Top 10 TV Torrents versus Top 10 Malicious TV Torrents
Most popular TV torrents
The Walking Dead
The Flash
The Big Bang Theory
Vikings
Titans
Arrow
Supernatural
Westworld
DC's Legends of Tomorrow
Suits
Most-infected TV torrents
Games of Thrones
The Walking Dead
Arrow
Suits
Vikings
The Big Bang Theory
Super Natural
Grey's Anatomy
This is Us
The Good Doctor
As you might expect, six out of the top 10 TV torrents also contain the most malicious files. Infecting PCs is largely a numbers game, after all.
But the interesting takeaway here is that Game of Thrones tops the malware list, despite not featuring in the top 10 most downloaded TV torrents of 2018.
'Game of Thrones accounted for 17 per cent of all the infected pirated content in 2018, with 20,934 users attacked' highlighted Kaspersky Labs. 'The first and the last episodes of each Game of Thrones season we analysed turned out the most dangerous.'
Kaspersky Labs found 33 different types of malware attached to Game of Thrones torrents. The show's very first episode, titled Winter is Coming, hosted the most malicious files.
What does this malware specifically look like? Well. The good news - if you download torrents - is that it's not overly difficult to spot.
The malware is an .exe file disguised as a video file, such as 'Game_Of_Thrones_S01_E01_Winter_Is_Coming.avi.exe'. Another popular trick of hackers is to bundle a shortcut folder that automatically launches malware in your torrent.
So, as you can see, there's nothing particularly sophisticated about the malicious files here. Users who avoid downloading torrents containing .exe files and shortcut folders will avoid the majority of nasty files.
Good antivirus software should be able to detect any malware in torrents and warn you before you open the files.
Kaspersky Labs offers solid advice to anyone looking to keep their computers virus-free. 'Pay attention to the extension of the downloaded file. If downloading TV show episodes, the file must not end in .exe. Be careful about the torrents you use and do look up the comments about the downloadable files. If comments are unrelated to the content, you are probably looking at malware.'