Category Archives: internet piracy

Vigilante hacking campaign blocks victims from visiting The Pirate Bay, other piracy sites

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A hacker doesn’t appear to be happy with the amount of digital piracy out there. A wave of malicious software downloads from October 2020 to January 2021 blocked users from visiting websites that host pirated versions of video games, Microsoft Office and other programs, analysts at antivirus firm Sophos said Thursday. One malware strain borrowed name recognition from The Pirate Bay, a notorious portal that directs users to copyrighted material while also serving up malicious software and nefarious advertisements. The vigilante disguised their malicious code as pirated software on Discord, a popular chat service, and on file-sharing service BitTorrent, Sophos said in a blog post. But instead of getting a bootlegged version of a video game like Minecraft, targets of the campaign downloaded malicious code that prevented their machines from visiting websites for pirated software. In some cases, the attacker made the malicious code appear as if it came from […]

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California man gets 3 years in prison for hacking Nintendo, collecting child pornography

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A 21-year-old California man has been sentenced to three years in prison and seven years of supervised release for a hacking scheme that stole proprietary Nintendo information, and for possessing child pornography. The defendant, Ryan Hernandez, will also have to pay more than $259,000 to remediate damages he allegedly caused Nintendo, U.S. prosecutors in the Western District of Washington announced Tuesday. The sentencing comes four years after Hernandez first got in trouble with the law for alleged hacking. In 2016, as a teenager, Hernandez and an unnamed associate stole login credentials from a Nintendo employee that were used to access files on Nintendo consoles and games, according to prosecutors. FBI agents visited Hernandez and his parents, and Hernandez pledged not to engage in anymore malicious online activity, the Justice Department said in a press release. But Hernandez went on to hack multiple Nintendo servers and steal internal data on popular […]

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US arrests suspected hackers accused of video game piracy

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The alleged leaders of an international video game piracy group apparently didn’t do enough to protect their scheme from the prying eyes of the feds. The Department of Justice says two men have been arrested on felony charges of helping run Team Xecuter, which sold modification kits and other tools that allowed users of the Nintendo Switch and other gaming devices to play pirated versions of games. The federal indictment charges Canadian national Gary Bowser, French national Max Louarn and Chinese national Yuanning Chen with 11 counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering in connection with Team Xecuter. The indictment does not link the three men to any other hacking groups. In many ways, though, the Justice Department’s approach to charging them mirrors other recent efforts to accuse and apprehend foreigners in cybercrime cases involving financial fraud or cyber-espionage. Team Xecuter, which claims to have been […]

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Microsoft warns of malware-laced ‘John Wick 3,’ ‘Contagion’ movie torrents

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Internet scammers are conducting the kind of business that would probably get them in trouble with the inhabitants of the Continental Hotel. Tens of thousands of internet users in Spain, Mexico and South America have downloaded pirated copies of “John Wick 3” and other movies which come bundled with malicious software, according to a forthcoming Microsoft security warning viewed by CyberScoop. Since April 11, some bootleg movie files on torrent websites have come with a strain of malware that hackers are using to try to exploit a victim’s machine to generate cryptocurrency. The attempted attacks coincide with a 41% increase in traffic to piracy websites in the U.S., and a 62% increase in Spain, since February, according to the British anti-piracy firm Muso. Thousands of users continue to download pirated files of “John Wick 3,” and Spanish-language titles including “Punalies Por La Espalda” and “Contagio,” a Spanish-dubbed version of the […]

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