Kaspersky found Pirate matryoshka malware to spread through The Pirate Bay

Kaspersky Lab researchers have discovered a new type of malware that spreads through the Pirate Bay torrent tracker website. Named after a classic Russian doll, the Matryoshka malware is designed to infect a user’s computer with adware and tools to spread malware onto the device. “The Pirate Bay (TPB) tracker filled up with harmful files used to distribute malware under the guise of cracked copies of paid programs.”

The Torrent service is a popular target for cybercriminals who want to distribute malicious code, especially since users searching for illegal content often disconnect their online security solutions or ignore system warnings to install downloaded content. Pirate Bay uses established seed servers to spread piracy. Due to its good reputation, potential victims have no reason to suspect that the files to be downloaded are malicious Trojans.

Kaspersky wrote,

Cybercriminals are always coming up with new kinds of fraud. In this particular case, they employed a method for delivering malicious content through torrent trackers to install adware on user computers. As a result, many TPB users not only picked up adware or malware on their machines, but had their accounts compromised.