Security News > 2021 > April > Oscar-Bait, Literally: Hackers Abuse Nominated Films for Phishing, Malware

Anticipation surrounding the upcoming 93rd Academy Awards broadcast on Sunday is being used by scammers to trick people into giving up their credentials - they think they're about to stream Oscar-nominated films, but the reality turns out to be much different.

Prior to the winners being announced during the ceremony, many film fans like to watch as many of the nominated movies as possible.

"In the hopes of watching an Oscar-nominated movie, users visited a site where they were shown the first few minutes of the film before being asked to register to continue watching," a Kaspersky report issued Friday on the scam detailed.

Over the past year, Kaspersky's team of researchers identified around 80 malicious files associated with films nominated in the Oscars' "Best Picture" category.

Other Academy-Award-nominated film titles used in to spread malware include Nomadland, Mank, Minari, The Father and Sound of Metal, Kaspersky found.

"We see that big events in the film industry can boost some interest from the cybercriminal community, but today this type of malicious activity is not as popular as it used to be. Nowadays, more and more people are switching to streaming services, which are more secure because they do not require downloading files. Still, films serve as a popular lure to spread phishing pages and spam emails."

News URL

https://threatpost.com/oscar-bait-hackers-nominated-phishing-malware/165583/