If You Download Game Of Thrones Torrent, Your PC Will Be Exposed To Dangerous Malware
Winter is coming for one of television’s most-pirated shows.
Game of Thrones torrents are packing a nasty surprise
Winter is coming for one of television’s most-pirated shows.
On Monday, security firm Kaspersky released a new report diving into the means by which hackers are ruining your favorite pirated TV shows. Game of Thrones, as you might have guessed, was chief among them, making it a risky move to pirate the TV show without additional filtering of downloaded torrent files.
Kaspersky’s report showed that Game of Thrones content was responsible for approximately 17 percent of infected downloads, affecting more than 20,000 users — all during a year in which the series didn’t release a single new episode.
The first and last episode of each season, in fact, were most likely to contain malware. “Winter is Coming” is the most dangerous of all episodes, and not just for Jon Arryn. Spoilers? Yeah, so what; it’s the first episode of the first season. You’ll get over it.
All told, security researchers found 33 types of threats contained within torrented Game of Thrones episodes. But it’s not the only risky download these days. Following the HBO hit were The Walking Dead, Arrow, and other popular shows like The Big Bang Theory, Suits, and This Is Us.
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This isn’t where we take the moral high ground and tell you that the only acceptable way to watch television is through a legal, and authorized source — although that’s certainly the safest, and HBO is what, $15 a month? You pay more each month on shitty coffee.
Instead, we’ll just say that if you’re going to pirate, Kaspersky recommends that you do some additional diligence before leaching your favorite TV shows. First, make sure it’s a legit torrent site, not a clone with a slight misspelling meant to trick users. And if you’re downloading a show illegally, be sure you’re using a format meant for video, not one ending in .exe or another executable file format.
And if you don’t want to take Kaspersky’s advice on this one, just know that more than 120,000 people were infected by malware while pirating TV shows last year. Granted, that’s a third fewer people than in 2017, but it’s not insignificant, either.
You can check out the full report at the link below.
Story by Bryan Clark
Former Managing Editor, TNW
Bryan is a freelance journalist. Bryan is a freelance journalist.
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If You Download Game Of Thrones Torrent, Your PC Will Be Exposed To Dangerous Malware
We’re on the cusp of Season 8 of Game of Thrones, and fans are super excited.
Of course, some of them can’t wait for the episodes to debut one by one, so they’re going looking for torrents. And those fans are about to get one heck of a nasty surprise.
Earlier this week, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky released a report on torrents and how hackers are using them to infect people with malware. They focused on movies and TV shows used as the medium for the infections.
It turns out that last year, Game of Thrones had the highest infection rate, hitting a total of more than 20,000 users. And that’s in a year when the series didn’t have a single new episode. It’s from a global total of 120,000 infected users last year.
In fact, the study showed that the first and last episodes of each season were the most likely to contain malware, probably because hackers know users trying out the show before committing are likely to torrent. The “Winter is Coming” episode of Season 1, the very first of the whole show, is the most dangerous.
In all, the researchers found 33 different types of threats in the torrented Game of Thrones episodes.
There were other shows likely to give you an infection too, showing just how popular they are. In second place was The Walking Dead, with Arrow in Third, as well as others like The Big Bang Theory, Suits, and This Is Us.
So if you’re going to keep torrenting, you’re likely going to hit some unsavoury downloads. You could try not doing that, but who are we kidding. So, at the very least, take a few precautions. Make sure the torrent is legit and not a fake. Look for telltale misspellings and comments. And of course, make sure the file doesn’t end in a .exe if it’s a movie or TV show.