Security News > 2020 > May > Microsoft catches cybercriminals adding malware to "John Wick 3," "Contagion" torrents
Cybercriminals have taken notice as well, increasingly lacing popular movie torrents with dangerous malware that can damage your device.
In a recent thread on Twitter, Microsoft Security Intelligence wrote at length that the team saw malware attached to torrents for popular "John Wick 3" and "Contagion" in Spain, Mexico, and a number of South American countries.
"With lockdown still in place in many parts of the world, attackers are paying attention to the increase in use of pirate streaming services and torrent downloads. We saw an active coin miner campaign that inserts a malicious VBScript into ZIP files posing as movie downloads," Microsoft Security Intelligence wrote on Twitter.
"Embedding malware in illegal content, whether movies, music, or apps is a fairly common strategy for attackers. The population that downloads such content is, by definition, more risk-tolerant and less likely to disclose where the malware came from. The specific type of content shifts based on what's most successful for attackers," Erlin said.
In an email interview, director of security research of Microsoft Threat Protection Tanmay Ganacharya echoes those statements, saying that spreading malware via torrent downloads is a commonly used technique.