Security firm ReasonLabs is warning movie fans that pirated copies of Spider-Man: No Way Home contain crypto mining malware
The film is the first to gross more than $1 billion at the box office. But with no way yet to watch the movie at home, it has been leaked on torrent sites over the last two weeks. Now, ReasonLabs says it’s found malware used to mine the Monero crypto in a file called “spiderman_net_putidomoi.torrent.exe,” – Russian for “spiderman_no_wayhome.torrent.exe”. The origin of the file, it says, is most likely a Russian torrenting website, and it hopes to discover more soon.
The cybersecurity firm also says the miner is not yet detected by Virus Total, and notes the malware avoids exposing itself by using seemingly legitimate names for the files and processes it generates after infecting a system. For example, one of the companies it spoofs is Google.
“We recommend taking extra caution when downloading content of any kind from non-official sources – whether it’s a document in an email from an unknown sender, a cracked program from a fishy download portal, or a file from a torrent download,” the researchers advised in a blog post.
“Try to gather information about the file, and always think twice before double-clicking on it. To make sure you see the real file extension, open a folder, go to ‘View’ and check ‘File name extensions’. This will make sure you see the full file type,” the researchers added.
Meanwhile, the Spider-Man: No Way Home series has hit the $1 billion mark at the box office. This makes it the top-grossing movie in 2021. To stop how people are immensely falling victims, Reasonlabs advises that users should always check properly and confirm if their downloaded extension matches the intended file. Alongside this, the company is working extra harder to fish out the ransomware criminal.
