Spider-Man: No Way Home is the latest in the long series of hit Marvel movies to hit cinemas. So it’s no surprise that cyber criminals are making use of it to spread malware. So while you shouldn’t be looking for torrents for the movie anyway, the fact that it is likely to be laden with malware should give you even more pause.
ZDNet reports that cybersecurity firm ReasonLabs has found Monero miners attached to torrents of Spider-Man: No Way Home. And built into the crypto miner are plenty of ways for it to not only remain undetected, but also to ensure that they keep running.
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To start, the miner adds itself to Windows Defender’s exclusion list. It also creates a watchdog process to ensure that it keeps running. And to keep other security software off its trail, it uses “legitimate” names for its files and processes. It is also not yet present in VirusTotal.
While cryto mining malware is not as damaging as, say ransomware, it’s still not something that you’ll want your PC to catch. Not only will your system slow down due to the miner being a resource hog, you’ll also be footing extra in electricity bill. All in all, you should stay away from torrents, especially of a movie that’s still showing in cinemas.
(Source: ZDNet)
