14 DAY TRIAL // Numerous locations have popped online claiming to deliver a free copy of the comedy “The Interview” as a lure for different cybercriminal activities.
This flurry of piracy is concurrent with the Sony announcement that it cancelled the release of the movie, as a direct result of Guardians of Peace (GoP) hackers threatening with violent acts on moviegoers wanting to watch the picture.
With the studio taking this decision, fans still wanting to watch the movie – and there are plenty awfully excited by the prospect – are left with no alternative but resort to illegal ways to quench their desire.
Crooks take advantage of the latest Sony-related events
A simple look at Google results for “The Interview” torrents makes one think that all the efforts to stop the movie from hitting the theatres have been nothing but futile action.
However, cybercriminals have been quick to take advantage of the situation and have already set up their traps.
According to copyright intelligence company Excipio, cited by Variety, no legitimate measurable copies of the movie exist on torrent sites.
Instead, those burning with desire to see how the fictional assassination of the North Korean leader ends are exposed to scams and malware.
In many cases, the download links lead to executables that claim to deliver the full version of the motion picture, but instead funnel in different pieces of software that are part of affiliate marketing; these can seriously impact the performance of the system.
Incentives used to trick users into downloading dangerous files
The fake torrents are also used for malware distribution. This is done by asking the user to download and install a specific codec or player for the video file to run. Important to note is that the latest operating systems offer support for common video formats, and so do reputable video players.
In one such instance, a legitimate fake file played the sound, but did not display the visual part under the pretext that a codec was needed. This is done to create an incentive for the user to access a malicious location that would host the right codec pack.
Skimming through, we determined that the file was actually a copy of “The English Patient,” but the scam cannot always be identified.
Getting unsuspecting users to complete online surveys is another tactic used by the crooks, and the same pattern would be used.
Sony has announced that “The Interview” will not be released in the US and neither will it be out on DVD/BluRay or VOD (Video On Demand). This means that pirated copies are very unlikely to have appeared on file sharing websites.
Check out the leaked death scene from The Interview, or a GIF, courtesy of Gawker:
