Top TV Shows Disguised To Spread Malware

It seems that cyber criminals are using new episodes of popular TV shows to distribute malware according to Kaspersky Lab. Among the top shows that’s included is Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, as well as Arrow.

Top TV shows with malware

It’s not hard to think of why TV shows are one of the most popular types of entertainment. With the rise of torrents, online streaming, and other methods of digital distribution, they often face copyright infringement. In many regions, these can be consumed through illegal channels, such as torrent-trackers and illegal streaming platforms. These parties may send a user file that looks like an episode of a TV show that users are looking for, but it may in fact be a malware with a similar name.

According to Kaspersky, leading the list in 2017 and 2018 was Game of Thrones, where in the latter year, it accounted for 17%of all infected pirated content, with 20,934 attackjed users, followed by The Walking Dead with 18,794 and Arrow with 12,163.

Kaspersky has noted that the malware distributors opted for the first and the last episode of each season to include their malicious content. Additionally, Kaspersky has given some hints on how to avoid these malicious programs that pretends 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 to be trusted and legitimate. The file should have an .avi, .mkv, or mp4 extension or any others and definitely not .exe.
• 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

Pokdepinion: …or you can simply just Netflix and chill..