Cybersecurity firm warned that cryptocurrency malware was found in torrents of Spider-Man: No Way Home. “This [crypto] miner adds exclusions to Windows Defender, creates persistence, and spawns a watchdog process to maintain its activity,” the firm explained.
Take Care When You Download Spider-Man from a Torrent Site
Cybersecurity firm Reasonlabs warned Thursday that cryptocurrency malware has been found in a torrent download of the new Marvel hit movie “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
Reasonlabs, which provides enterprise-grade cyber protection for users worldwide, noted that “To lure in as many victims as possible, attackers must stay up to date with trending topics.” The cybersecurity firm elaborated:
We are dealing with someone who put a monero miner in a torrent of what appears to be the latest Spider-Man movie: No Way Home.
Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home has hit the $1 billion mark at the box office, making it the highest-grossing movie of 2021. The third installment of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man series, No Way Home is the first movie released during the Covid-19 pandemic to reach the $1 billion mark.
Reasonlabs explained: “The file identifies itself as ‘spiderman_net_putidomoi.torrent.exe,’ which translates from Russian to ‘spiderman_no_wayhome.torrent.exe.’” The firm believes that the file most likely originated from a Russian torrenting website.
The firm claims:
This miner makes Windows Defender more secure, persists and creates a watchdog process that monitors its activity.
“The malware tries to stay away from examining eyes, by using ‘legitimate’ names for the files and processes that it creates; for example, it claims to be by Google and drops files with names like sihost64.exe, and injects to svchost.exe,” Reasonlabs described.
One simple precaution was to ensure that the file extension downloaded is the same as the one you intend to download. For example, a movie file should end with “.mp4” and not “.exe.” The firm added that “To make sure you see the real file extension, open a folder, go to ‘View’ and check ‘File name extensions.’ This will make sure you see the full file type.” The full analysis of this malware can be found here.
How do hackers put a crypto miner into a torrent of Spider-Man No Way Home? Comment below.
Image creditShutterstock. Pixabay. Wiki Commons. Sony. Marvel
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