• d00ery@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Soon it became dangerous to download the movie, though, as popular demand for the movie quickly put a target on downloaders’ backs and scammers soon planted malware in Spider-Man movie torrents that ReasonLabs reported used the movie to “lure in as many victims as possible.”

    ReasonLabs said that the malware was “likely from a Russian torrenting site.” It took over the would-be Spider-Man movie watchers’ computers without setting off Windows Defender and with the goal of cryptomining in the background for the bad actors’ benefit.

    How does a video file contain malware. Or are people running exe files to watch a video?

    • CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      Some players might have vulnerabilities that people exploit; but honestly it’s very rare, especially with most people auto updating their programs.

      Most of the time it is indeed “download spider man no virus no survey 2023 free download.exe”

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      The video itself is a set of instructions, and when a video player interprets those instructions there is a window of opportunity.