Cybercrooks could enter your premise through your Television
By MYBRANDBOOK
A recent report says, Dragons, zombies and superheroes and top TV show disguises used to spread malware. TV shows are one of the most popular and universal types of entertainment, yet with the rise of torrents, online streaming, and other methods of digital distribution, they often suffer from copyright infringement. In many regions, such programs can now be consumed through illegal channels, such as torrent-trackers and illegal streaming platforms. Unlike legitimate resources, torrent trackers and hosted files may send a user a file that looks like an episode of a TV show but is in fact malware with a similar name.
Seeing how easily TV shows downloaded from illegitimate resources can be replaced with malware-carrying versions, Kaspersky lab researchers took a closer look at such compromised files, covering both 2018 and 2017. Leading the list in both years was Game of Thrones. In 2018, it accounted for 17% of all infected pirated content, with 20,934 attacked users, followed by The Walking Dead, with 18,794, and Arrow, with 12,163.
This is despite the fact that in 2018, there were no new episodes of Game of Thrones released, while the other shows in the ranking were accompanied by high profile promotional campaigns.In every case observed, the malware distributors opted for the first and the last episode of each season, with the launch episode the most actively used, for example, Game of Throne’s ‘The winter is coming’ episode in Season 1.
“We can see clearly that malware distributors exploit TV shows that are in high demand on pirated websites: these are usually actively promoted dramas or action series. The first and final episodes, attracting the most viewers, are likely to be at greatest risk of malicious spoofing. Online fraudsters tend to exploit people’s loyalty and impatience, so may promise brand new material for download that is in fact a cyberthreat. Keeping in mind that the final season of Game of Thrones starts this month, we would like to warn users that it is highly likely there will be a spike in the amount of malware disguised as new episodes of this show,” Said Anton V. Ivanov, security researcher at Kaspersky Lab.
To avoid falling victim to malicious programs pretending to be TV-shows:
* Use only legitimate services with a proven reputation for producing and distributing TV-content.
* Pay attention to the downloaded file extension. Even if you are going to download TV-show episodes from a source you consider trusted and legitimate, the file should have an .avi, .mkv or mp4 extension or any others, yet definitely not the .exe.
* Pay extra attention to the websites’ authenticity. Do not visit websites allowing to watch TV-show until you are sure that they are legitimate and start with ‘https’. Check that the website is genuine, by double- checking the format of the URL or the spelling of the company name, before starting downloads.
* Don’t click on suspicious links, such as those promising an early view of a new episode; check the TV-show schedule and keep track of it.
* Use reliable security solution for comprehensive protection from a wide range of threats, such as Kaspersky Security Cloud.
Seeing how easily TV shows downloaded from illegitimate resources can be replaced with malware-carrying versions, Kaspersky Lab researchers took a closer look at such compromised files, covering both 2018 and 2017. Leading the list in both years was Game of Thrones. In 2018, it accounted for 17% of all infected pirated content, with 20,934 attacked users, followed by The Walking Dead, with 18,794, and Arrow, with 12,163.
This is despite the fact that in 2018, there were no new episodes of Game of Thrones released, while the other shows in the ranking were accompanied by high profile promotional campaigns.
In every case observed, the malware distributors opted for the first and the last episode of each season, with the launch episode the most actively used, for example, Game of Throne’s ‘The winter is coming’ episode in Season 1.
“We can see clearly that malware distributors exploit TV shows that are in high demand on pirated websites: these are usually actively promoted dramas or action series. The first and final episodes, attracting the most viewers, are likely to be at greatest risk of malicious spoofing. Online fraudsters tend to exploit people’s loyalty and impatience, so may promise brand new material for download that is, in fact, a cyberthreat. Keeping in mind that the final season of Game of Thrones starts this month, we would like to warn users that it is highly likely there will be a spike in the amount of malware disguised as new episodes of this show,” Said Anton V. Ivanov, security researcher at Kaspersky Lab.
Singapore to remove One-Time Passwords from Bank Accounts
According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, clients who utilise secur...
Is 375 million Airtel subscribers database breached?
When a hacker claims to have accessed and put up for sale a customer databa...
The government of India intends to construct a single portal f
A single portal will be launched by the Indian government to list all of it...
OpenAI offers GPT-4o, a faster model available to all users at
GPT-4o, a faster and more sophisticated AI model, is made available to all...
Icons Of India : Bhavish Aggarwal
Indian entrepreneur Bhavish Aggarwal is the CEO of Ola, India’s larg...
Icons Of India : MADHABI PURI BUCH
Madhabi Puri Buch is the first-female chairperson of India’s markets...
ICONS OF INDIA : SANJAY GUPTA
Sanjay Gupta is the Country Head and Vice President of Google India an...
RailTel Corporation of India Limited
RailTel is a leading telecommunications infrastructure provider in Ind...
C-DAC - Centre for Development of Advanced Computing
C-DAC is uniquely positioned in the field of advanced computing...
ECIL - Electronics Corporation of India Limited
ECIL is distinguished by its diverse technological capabilities and it...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - Dheeraj Pandey, CEO, DevRev
Dheeraj Pandey, Co-founder and CEO at DevRev , has a remarkable journe...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - REVATHI ADVAITHI, CEO- Flex
Revathi Advaithi, the CEO of Flex, is a dynamic leader driving growth ...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - Steve Sanghi, Executive Chair, Microchip
Steve Sanghi, the Executive Chair of Microchip Technology, has been a ...