Kaspersky has released a new report into malware disguised as episodes of popular TV shows in 2018. According to the report, Game of Thrones torrents top the lists with the most malware
Kaspersky collated the 31 most popular and most pirated shows of last year — titles like Stranger Things, The Handmaid’s Tale and Westworld — and tracked their appearance on torrenting and piracy sites.
Of the 31 shows studied, Kaspersky found 126,340 cases of malware posing as episodes. (The data is sourced from millions of volunteers worldwide that share cybersecurity data with the company as part of its Kaspersky Security Network).
Here’s the low-down from the Kaspersky report:
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Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and Arrow were the worst shows for malware
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Fake Game of Thrones eps accounted for almost one-fifth of malware (17 per cent)
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The first and last episode of each Game of Thrones season was the worst for malware, with the first ever episode “Winter is Coming” one of the leading sources of malware
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American Horror Story did the most damage, with each malicious file posing as an episode reaching an average of three users
The two most popular pieces of malware were “Not-a-virus: Downloader” and “Not-a-virus: AdWare.”
Perhaps most mind-boggling of all is the fact that there were no new episodes of Game of Thrones released in 2018. It’s a safe bet to expect even more malware posing as new episodes when season 8 starts to air 14 April 2019.
