Malware via Black Widow

Marvel Black Widow film has sparked the interest of several fraudsters and hackers. Released on June 9th in few countries, Researchers have discovered malware downloads posing as the new Black Widow film that is already spreading on the internet.

Several Black Widow-themed phishing sites are running,with the motives of obtaining user credentials. One of the websites examined by researchers promised viewers an early screening of the film in exchange for registering on the site. Users were requested to provide their banking card information during the registration procedure to validate their residency region. Later they discovered that money had been deducted from their account and they still didn’t get access to the movie.

There has been an increase in attempts to infect users who are keenly awaiting the new film’s release. Since the movie’s release date was pushed from June 2020, December 2020, May 2021and back to July 2021, hackers have tried to take advantage of the misunderstanding by infecting 13 percent of streaming services and even launching the movie’s downloadable files.

Precautions

Scammers are not only utilizing phishing websites to deceive innocent users, but they are also redirecting executable files disguised as movie downloads. To remain safe, avoid files that have a . EXE or .MSI extension, because movie files generally have .MP4, .AVI, .MOV, .WMV, or .M4P extensions.

Pay special attention to the website URL you visit in order to see or download the film. Scammers frequently make minor modifications to the domain or movie name, so double-check the address to rule out any bad activity.