First & Final Episodes Of Game Of Thrones Season 8 Will Be Most Pirated, And Will Have Malware
Game of Thrones becomes the most-pirated show during each new season, and this time is no different. After the first episode of Season 8 leaked last week, this week Episode 2 was six hours early. It wasn¡¯t a pirate to blame though.
It's happened again. Game of Thrones becomes the most-pirated show during each new season, and this time is no different.
After the first episode of Season 8 leaked last week, this week Episode 2 was six hours early. It wasn't a pirate to blame though.
Apparently, this time Amazon Prime was to blame. The episode was accidentally set to go online hours earlier today than intended on the platform in Germany. It has since been taken down, but not before many people took the chance to watch it in advance. On top of that, the episode also obviously made it to torrent sites and other illegal streaming platforms.
When Episode 1 leaked last week, 55 million people watched it illegally in just the first 24 hours. At least 12.2 percent of those were via downloads and 11.3 percent via torrents. There's no word yet on how many views the new leak of Episode 2 got.
Illegal downloads are often used as vehicles to distribute malware, and that goes doubly for popular content like Game of Thrones or Avengers: Endgame.
According to security vendor Kaspersky Labs, in 2018, Game Of Thrones was responsible for 17 percent of all infected pirated content worldwide, totalling 20,934 victims. That's even more likely when you're trying to illegally download the first or final episode of a season.
Kaspersky Lab security researcher Anton Ivanov writes, "As the final season of Game of Thrones has started, we would like to warn users that it is highly likely there will be a spike in the amount of malware disguised as new episodes of this show.¡±
He further mentions how Kaspersky Lab's analysis makes it clear that malware distributors exploit TV shows that are in high demand on pirated websites to infect unsuspecting, eager viewers. The first and final episodes, attracting the most viewers, are likely to be at greatest risk of malicious spoofing.
So yeah, just stick to the official providers guys. It's better to see zombie white walkers invade Westeros than malware invade your PC.
