What are the risks of downloading files and software




















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Be wary about downloading anything, as people can call their files anything they like. Something that appears to be a clip from a new sci-fi movie could in fact be hardcore porn or a virus-infected file. Safe peer-to-peer file sharing If you must use file-sharing software, make sure you choose safe software, install it safely and use it properly.

Consider paying for a premium version that is not funded by advertising, to reduce the risk of adware being installed. This avoids sharing your emails, photos, financial information or work files with complete strangers. See Also Protecting Yourself Find this post useful?

Indeed, uploading the file on VirusTotal platform, we have the following results:. VirusTotal also confirms that it is a form of Trojan malware. A real Nero installation asks for an installation path, key activation key and other legit information, not for the credential of an illegal service. Another widely used program is Adobe Photoshop. Created in , this software has become the de facto industry standard for image editing and post-processing.

In fact, everyone who wants to share image processing work uses the file formats defined by Adobe. For this reason, it is another attractive means to spread malware, so we decided to search for Photoshop on LimeTorrents:.

We downloaded the third result. The small size led us to think to something malicious was hidden in the files. This is just an indicator used to rapidly identify malicious files; we cannot exclude the possibility that even files with a bigger dimension could hide a tainted version of legitimate software. The executable is once again a classical Trojan, as reported in the VirusTotal report. The good news is that the majority of antimalware solutions listed in VirusTotal are able to detect the file as malicious software.

Another popular software downloaded by many users is, curiously, the popular antivirus software Malwarebytes. However, we found a cracked version of Malwarebytes Premium online; it promises to implement all the functionalities included in the paid version.

So we searched for it on LimeTorrents, obtaining a huge amount of results:. We uploaded it on VirusTotal and discovered that it is detected as malicious adware by most antivirus solutions. All this information is necessary to customize the advertisements and consequently to allow the adware to become more pervasive. While we were analyzing the Torrent network, we decided to dissect an interesting sample of malware related to a huge botnet spreading in the wild. This has been dubbed Sathurbot.

This malicious code was one of the numerous types of malware distributed through torrents, pretending to be a Codec Pack necessary to display the video just downloaded by the victims. An older version of it had already been analyzed by ESET researchers in The new malware variant shows some different behavior from the older one.

The main purpose of the bot is to compromise as many machines as possible. In order to do this, it leverages vulnerable WordPress websites to spread online. When a site is compromised, the malware uploads a torrent file pointing to a copy of itself.

Then it creates a new webpage that has a title containing trend words e. When the user clicks on the fake Codec Pack, the malware shows a fake window, simulating a program installation. This terminates with an error message.

The unaware user will think there is a problem with the setup and never suspect that something malicious has happened, while the malware proceeds with its operations in a stealthy way.

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