Fake movie file infects Windows and steals or tricks bitcoin users

[jseverson]

And I'm running Windows, and you should understand that not all are familiar with the UI of Linux.

I do not consider myself a Linux elitist, but I think it's better than Windows if you're handling sensitive material. If you can protect yourself though, good for you! I say that sincerely. I personally prefer it because I can afford to be a little more careless with my activities. I don't keep wallets on my Windows machines.

But uh, there seems to be a common misconception that Linux is hard to use. It may get daunting because there are so many flavors to choose from, but the most popular ones are user friendly enough that it shouldn't take the average joe more than a day to get used to it.

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[bitfocus]

so sad! windoes users are always target of scammers and hackers! i think it's time to switch to easy alternatives as Ubuntu, mint etc

[Artemis3]

That is the main reason why  I usually put some amountd that i will be using on a exchanger site especially because I am using only one pc for all my activities.

The larger part of my amount are of coursed being stored on a cold wallet. Ill just have to try mobile wallet as an alternative

In this case your are using an online wallet, you are putting your trust in a third party. Instead of your computer getting "hacked", it could be that server. But then, if your computer gets compromised, they can still gain access to the money in that server. By intercepting your password and 2fa in real time.

So even for that, you should use a secure OS. Anything that involves money should not be done lazily on the same pc, Of course booting a live iso is perfectly valid; point is don't use your "everyday windows pc" for this, you are in danger.

People who are too lazy to use a different OS, will much less be able to secure windows, which is much harder to do than just using Linux. And that is a fact.

Here is a sample of a "Linux UI" (as i said before, the UI can be completely replaced or removed entirely):

Its so scary a windows user could never use it, right? Oh wait...

I do not consider myself a Linux elitist, but I think it's better than Windows if you're handling sensitive material. If you can protect yourself though, good for you! I say that sincerely. I personally prefer it because I can afford to be a little more careless with my activities. I don't keep wallets on my Windows machines.

But uh, there seems to be a common misconception that Linux is hard to use. It may get daunting because there are so many flavors to choose from, but the most popular ones are user friendly enough that it shouldn't take the average joe more than a day to get used to it.

Exactly, that comment about "elitism" is nonsense, as if he/she couldn't put an iso in a usb and boot from it or install it. Elitism would be if it was a select group where only a few could access, but its quite the opposite: Linux is free open source, anyone can legally download it and use it, unlike windows.

Fact remains that windows is and has always been far more dangerous than Linux and other *nix like OSes, with or without user intervention (mistakes/bad habits, etc).

When you are your own bank, you assume those responsibilities. Ignore them and you lose money, is that simple.

[thesmallgod]

all you need to do is to look for a premium malwarebyte and install on your computer. I have been a victim of cryptovirus before. I downloaded a file and my system became infected with a virus called coinminer. what the virus do is to use the power of your system to mine cryptocurrency for the attacker. I noticed this quickly through the high CPU of my computer and also my battery run down very fast when not connected to charging source. I got raid of the threat through malwarebyte and ever since I have been very careful when downloading especially from sites that give freebies

[stompix]

Malware on TPB is not a new thing, but the method used to infect a victim's computer and the large amount of varied malicious activities discovered by BleepingComputer are quite interesting.

This!

TPB is full of fake files, malware, viruses, tracking torrents, everything!!!
There are hours when in the "recent" section the last two to three pages are full of so-called rips from the latest movies with thousands of fake seeds and of course fake files.

Downloading a fresh torrent from TPB from a non-trusted user is like agreeing to have your computer infected.

But uh, there seems to be a common misconception that Linux is hard to use. It may get daunting because there are so many flavors to choose from, but the most popular ones are user friendly enough that it shouldn't take the average joe more than a day to get used to it.

Exactly, that comment about "elitism" is nonsense, as if he/she couldn't put an iso in a usb and boot from it or install it.

I find it funny how even now after years and years in which we supposedly have access to information the majority of people still think Linux is something of a command based OS and they picture it like a ms-dos window.

We should really start to treat those wallets like they should, like a bank account that once compromised you have no way of getting back your funds. Why risk hundred or even thousands of dollars when there are so many cheap alternatives to secure your funds?

all you need to do is to look for a premium malwarebyte and install on your computer.

Don't put that much faith in anti-malware programs, they are not a bulletproof security method.
If you're unlucky and be the first hit by a new type of malware it won't trigger an alert.

[yulchatar]

We live in an era when blockchain and bitcoin technologies are rapidly developing, and, unfortunately, fraud is also flourishing rapidly. We can fight it only if we are careful and cautious about everything, but it is not always possible. The human factor has not been canceled nobody. And yet, we ourselves must take care of our security and the security of our cryptocurrency funds. Nobody will do it for us.

[dablatair]

Hello,

Thank you BBC.reporter for your subject.

I don't download torents and furthermore on a "crypto" computer but it is good to know in order to be able to add this advice when I speak security potential threats to friends and people on crypto social media.

Really elaborated method, scamers/hackers are more and more imaginative to steal people, specially on this area where many rookies don't know the basic rules and don't follow the basic rules of don't trust anybody you don't know, specifically when money is in the middle.

[jseverson]

all you need to do is to look for a premium malwarebyte and install on your computer.

Most people actually recommend that you run it in conjunction with Windows Defender, so while it's incredibly reliable, it's probably still not as reliable as you think and/or might need it to be. If you must run Windows for crypto activities, you're going to need to stop risking all of your funds for small freebies like pirated movies, software, etc., as your coins are probably worth more than they are. You have very little room for error, if any at all.

[winstonchurchillwar]

To protect yourself, it is best not to store cryptocurrency or private keys to wallets on the device that has access to the Internet. Losing money hurts a lot. I've been through this.

[care2yak]

or better yet, just don't pirate material. go to safe streaming sites if you want to keep malware away from your device.

Nothing beats free however hehehe. There are also no safe streaming sites except the paid sites similar to Netflix.

In any case, you might have missed what bittorrent mainly is. It is a peer to peer file sharing network for anything. Its use for good must be encouraged.

yep, that's true - nothing beats free     used their services back when the original tpb site was still up and the government wasn't making a move at them yet. so, yes, my device back then was a virus and malware haven haha!

also agree that there are no safe free streaming sites so i pay netflix    the downside is that most shows there are ancient save for a few tv series.

anyway, used bittorent and understand what it does. they've partnered with tron and recently announced expanding their ecosystem to include blockchain technology. so they'll get incorporated to cryptospace and introduce the token BTT which will be a tron trc-10 token. new bittorrent and utorrent software will integrate wallets so even non-cryptocurrency users will have wallets right away. does this mean that a user gets incentives for downloading and seeding files - including malware?

have you read their whitepaper? i haven't so i still don't get how the client, swarms, trackers, and seeding will play a role in bittorrent's cryptocurrency protocol. it should be interesting to find out how their protocol will fare in the crypto-economy including how they'll address malware infections if that's possible or if there will be any...

[Linkkoin]

This is why you should never ever deal with files from unreliable sources or visit strange websites.
As well using hardware wallets is a reasonable thing to do.

[waitforme]

People are becoming more intelligent, and the forms of attack are becoming more and more complex. I'm not a tech-savvy person, but I find that this is a significant threat for people who participate in Cryptocurrency like me when most private keys stored on a PC or laptop. But I think security companies will soon solve this problem to replace users.