The year’s biggest movie could well be “The Odyssey”, and as Christopher Nolan’s latest massive flick sets forth, so too have criminals found a way to take advantage.
While there were no pirates on the set of a long ancient Greek poem, there are pirates in today’s world, and they may be doing more than sharing a big film. They might be using that movie to break into your computer.
Bitdefender has released details about a type of scam similar to one that occurred last year where attackers used a major movie to hide malware, essentially making something look like a legitimate video download, but instead running an app.
That app is called the “Lumma Stealer”, a piece of malware that when run scrapes passwords from browsers, any wallet information, and potentially login sessions from web browser cookies, transmitting them to attackers, all because someone wanted to download a copy of a film, which in this case appears to be the latest blockbuster, “The Odyssey”.
This type of malware is called an “infostealer”, and what it does is more or less exactly right in its name, taking your details without you being the wiser.
It can look just like a video file, but when downloaded and run, executes the malware. By then, it is potentially too late, and the attacker may have your information.
Given the events of The Trojan Horse in both the epic poem and film, the irony could not be more obvious, with an attack in disguise of something that’s wanted and desired.
Research from Bitdefender has revealed a few variations of the attack, with Windows apps that run and appear in both downloads and torrents for movie released, and even appears with customised icons made to look more like a video file. It may not be helped by the fact that Windows is typically set to hide file extensions, making the app look even more like a video, even when it’s not.
It’s not a terribly new approach, and in the past attackers have used it with music files, too.
As for what it affects, Windows appears to be the primary target of this attack, though similar malware exists for Mac, as well, albeit not in this specific incarnation. However, infostealer malware does appear to exist for both major operating systems,
While the obvious learning here is not to download pirated anything, especially since malware can be disguised as practically anything these days, it could also be another feather in the cap for needing security software in your life.
