Cybercriminals are actively using new episodes of popular TV shows to distribute malware, research by Kaspersky Lab has found. “Game of Thrones,” “The Walking Dead” and “Arrow” are the shows receiving the most attention from attackers. These and other findings are published in a new report, “Game of Threats: How cybercriminals use popular TV shows 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 might send a user a file that looks like an episode of a TV show, but is in fact malware with a similar name.
“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.