Introduction

Despite the reality that movie piracy is illegal, torrent sites continue to succeed on the internet. Consumers have downloaded various popular TV shows and movies programmes utilizing sneaky techniques such as VPN software. However, many people have no idea that some hackers build up false pirate websites to promote entertainment content that is somehow loaded with malware in order to entice potential victims.

Spiderman: No Way Home, being the most talked-about blockbuster in a long time, gives a wonderful chance for hackers. It’s an opportunity to communicate with millions of potential targets and gain access to computers all around the world. All today’s evil actors want to do is offer their victims access to the most recent movie, and they’ll get complete access to systems.

Reason Labs, a prominent provider of cyber security prevention and detection software, recently detected a new type of malware impersonating as the latest Spiderman film and infecting users systems.

How crypto-malware mined?

While ranking at the blockbuster, Spiderman: No Way Home makes everyone excited to watch this as soon as they can. Going physically to watch the film in theatres makes everyone standing in queues and waiting for so long. Despite waiting in queues, people chose to watch it at home by downloading the pirated version with an ease- ignoring the fact that they are bringing a malicious threat to their systems. Hackers took advantage of this. The leaked movie file was named as: spiderman_net_putidomoi.torrent.exe Russian for   “spiderman_no_wayhome.torrent.exe”. It is to be said that, the file was originated in Russia and research on its origin is still on. Once the film is downloaded, it creates persistence, runs a watchdog process, and adds filters to Windows Defender to prevent the malware’s operations from being traced.

How does Crypto-malware works?

Crypto currency mining is a time-consuming process that involves solving complicated riddles. To solve the game and get prizes, it requires a network of computers to collaborate. As a result, in this scenario, hackers attempt to hijack computers in order to use the system’s CPU and, for certain cases, GPU to mine bitcoin. It then begins mining Monero, a somewhat untraceable and anonymous crypto currency, for the profit of its inventors.

Safety Measures

• Do not go for links available for watching and downloading movies via any social platform.
• Avoid watching pirated movies or shows, as it’s not legal.
• Do not install any software or resource from unknown sources in name of movies or shows.