14 DAY TRIAL // Torrent site lovers had difficulties accessing Kickass Torrents all day today, after Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari started marking the torrent portal as dangerous and showing warnings to all users accessing the site.
The warning started appearing a few hours ago and is due to Google's Safe Browsing service, implemented in both browsers.
Google Chrome detects the site as dangerous and shows the standard "Deceptive site ahead" message, introduced in November 2015, and updated in February 2016, to mark sites that employ various types of social engineering attacks.
Google's Safe Browsing feature strikes again!
This warning is regularly shown on sites with deceptive ads, which show fake download buttons, help distribute PUP (Potentially Unwanted Programs), or contain phishing code that helps attackers steal login credentials.
The rest of the message goes as follows: "Attackers on kat.cr may trick you into doing something dangerous like installing software or revealing your personal information (for example, passwords, phone numbers, or credit cards)."
On Firefox, the message is a little bit different thanks to the way Mozilla implemented the Safe Browsing API, and the default landing page says "Web Forgery Ahead."
The rest of the Firefox message goes as follows: "This web page at kat.cr has been reported as a web forgery and has been blocked based on your security preferences. Web forgeries are designed to trick you into revealing personal or financial information by imitating sources you may trust. Entering any information on this web page may result in identity theft or other fraud."
In Safari, the standard "Suspected Phishing Site" error is shown, with the following message: "The website you are visiting has been reported as a "phishing" website. These websites are designed to trick you into disclosing personal or financial information, usually by creating a copy of a legitimate website, such as a bank."
This happened before
All messages show up with users that have security options enabled in their browser, and users can go around them and access the torrent portal. The chances are that less technical users will just leave the site and opt to download their torrents from somewhere else.
Kickass torrents said on its forum that it has contacted Google about the issue. This happened many times in the past, the last time this happening being in October 2015 (happened twice actually).
Additionally, a second issue seems to affect the site, with some users claiming that they can't access the site via HTTP, but only via HTTPS.
Last week, Kickass Torrents took steps in boosting their site's security features by launching two-factor authentication (2FA) for its users.
UPDATE: Kickass Torrents has provided the following statement (via TorrentFreak): "In order to improve users security we are wrapping every external link in confirmation window and this time google alert is referring to a wrapped link that has been posted in our community. We’ve blocked that site thus rendering those external links unusable. We’ve reported it to google and expecting this security alert soon to be lifted."
The issue still remains even today, but as KAT staff explained in the above statement, it's only a matter of time until will be fixed and the phishing site flag removed.
