'Spider-Man: No Way Home' Torrents May Contain Crypto Malware, Warns Security Firm

A New York-based cybersecurity firm has warned that the torrent download of the new Marvel movie "Spider-Man: No Way Home" contains crypto-malware.

In a warning issued Dec. 23, ReasonLabs said, "To lure in as many victims as possible, attackers must stay up to date with trending topics."

"In this case, we are facing someone who has placed a monero miner in a torrent download of what seems to be the new movie Spider-Man: No Way Home," the firm added.

Sony/Marvel’s "Spider-Man: No Way Home" has crossed the $1 billion mark at the box office, making it the highest-grossing movie of the year. It has also become the first movie to cross this mark globally after the pandemic.

Torrenting is a common practice adopted by cinema lovers who wish to watch movies time and again sitting at home. However, any action taken online comes with a risk of cyberattacks. This happens to be one such case.

“The malware tries to steer clear of analyzing eyes, through the use of ‘reliable’ names for the information and processes that it creates; for instance, it claims to be by Google and drops information with names like sihost64.exe, and injects to svchost.exe,” Reasonlabs described.

The cybersecurity firm suggested that one way to not allow crypto-malware to take over the computer system is to verify that the extension of the file being downloaded matches that of the file meant to obtain. For example, a film file ought to finish with “.mp4” and never “.exe.”

The agency added that to ensure to be able to see the actual file extension, the user should "open a folder, go to ‘View’ and verify ‘File title extensions.’