ReasonLabs uncovered bitcoin mining malware that masquerades as a torrent for the Spiderman: No Way Home film, enticing people all across the world to download the file and expose their computers to criminals.
Fans of the Spiderman series have been eager to get their hands on the film elsewhere, as many viewers have been unable to attend physical theatres owing to lockdown restrictions. This might explain why so many people downloaded the “leaked” file, Spiderman net putidomoi.torrent.exe when it originally appeared.
According to the researchers, when the virus first ran, it would terminate any process with the name of one of its components to ensure that only one instance was operating at any one time. After then, the crypto mining virus starts two new processes, Sihost64.exe and WR64.exe. Exclusions to Windows Defender can be added by the malicious crypto miner.
How does the coin miner work?
Cryptojacking is a type of harmful crypto mining in which cybercriminals gain access to computers and laptops to install malicious software. This malware takes use of the computer’s processing power and resources to mine for cryptocurrencies or perhaps even steal cryptocurrency wallets from users who unintentionally downloaded their bait file, which in this case is the well-known film Spiderman No Way Home.
Cryptocurrency mining refers to the process of generating or merely mining new coins of a certain cryptocurrency. It is quite simple to accomplish, but the resources required for mining must have excellent specifications and a powerful hard drive. If several processors and computers mine at the same time, the total number of mined cryptocurrencies increases.
That is why cyber thieves are resolute in developing crypto jacking software to unwittingly mine cryptocurrency using the power of their victims’ computers. People infected with the coin miner malware are likely to encounter high CPU utilization, slow processes, and system overheating.
The best approach to prevent becoming a victim of this infection is to avoid downloading “Spider-Man: No Way Home” illegally.
Cryptocurrency mining malware is usually a covert infection that farms a system’s resources. This form of software mines cryptocurrency on your computer utilizing your resources in an undetectable manner.
“We advise additional caution when obtaining anything from non-official sources of any type, whether it’s a document in an email from an unknown sender, a cracked application from a shady download page, or a file through a torrent download,” says the advisory.
