The anti-piracy malware was uncovered during research performed by the cybersecurity company Sophos. Once infected, the exploit prevents the user from visiting over a thousand websites relating to torrenting and piracy.
Anybody infected with "vigilante" malware can remove it using Sophos antivirus according to the company. Other popular antivirus programs should also be able to successfully detect, block, and remove the exploit because it can be discovered using its "unique runtime packer, which is the same as used by an unrelated malware family, Qbot," Sophos said.
Vigilante torrent
When infected by the anti-piracy malware, popular hostnames for piracy websites like the Pirate Bay are altered within the HOSTS file to purposefully point to the IP address 127.0.0.1. As a result, the computer is blocked from accessing the genuine IP addresses for piracy and torrenting services.
This implies that the hacker may be working on behalf of copyright holders who feel they have been wronged by torrent and piracy sites. Specifically (because the malware appears mainly in fake downloads for pirated computer games) the hacker could be working within the computer games industry, perhaps for a game studio that has suffered at the hands of pirates.
As always, we recommend that anybody considering accessing piracy websites or wanting to download torrent files does so while using a VPN to conceal their home IP address. For more information on using a VPN to gain privacy, head over to our Best VPNs for Torrenting guide.
Sam Foley: A vigilante is simply somebody who violates the law in order to punish a criminal for what they believe is right, for what they believe is justice. So what then do you call a country who sends soldiers to kill people in places like Afghanistan or Iran, Iraq, Korea, Vietnam in the name of what they believe is right, in the name of what they believe is justice. That country is a vigilante - pure and simple.
Sadie (Olivia Wilde) is a vigilante helping abused women. It is clear from the opening she is complex and a victim herself, the details we get halfway through. I liked the first half of the production. The second half was a Sadie attempting to survive, which seemed like a different film.Guide: No sex or nudity.
Sadie (Olivia Wilde) is a survivalist and a vigilante. She survived abuse and comes to the aid of the abused. She leaves behind her number which is passed around to other abuse victims.Olivia Wilde delivers a loud performance but not in words. This needs words. This needs some expositions. There is a turn in the middle which is a little confused. All in all, it's an interesting movie but a little muddled in its execution.
Vigilante is a Death Wish rip off by exploitation director William Lustig.It is another slice of early 1980s New York City where crime and hoodlums are on every corner.Nick (Fred Williamson) is blue collar factory worker who has a team of vigilantes that takes the fight to the criminals who get away from the law.Eddie Marino (Robert Forster) is Nick's co-worker whose wife is badly injured and his son is killed when some hoodlums invade their home.Eddie spurns Nick's offer of help. Preferring to rely on the criminal justice system. Eddie sees one of the gang walk away with a suspended sentence.When Eddie angrily complains to judge, he ends up in jail for 30 days. Once out, he teams up with Eddie to go and get the gang that killed his boy.This is a gritty exploitation film of the era. The story zig zags all over the place.Either the focus should had been on Eddie taking on the gang or Nick and his cohorts taking on the scum in the neighbourhood and eventually the big boss.There is a nice car chase scene that was inspired by The French Connection but the rest of the movie is forgettable.
A new type of malware campaign has been discovered that apparently blocks access to the most popular torrent site, The Pirate Bay, and a number of other sites known for redistributing pirated content.
The vigilantes named the pages after popular games, productivity tools, and even security products, accompanied by additional files that make it appear to have originated with a well-known file-sharing account on ThePirateBay, thereby looking to target everyone from gamers to professionals.
According to Brandt, the new malware is being distributed through Discord or pirated software torrent sites. On Discord, the malware is distributed as standalone executables pretending to be pirated software, as shown below.
On sites like The Pirate Bay, the malware is being distributed in a similar way to other torrent files in the sense that they contain readme files, NFO files, and shortcut files back to thepiratebay.org.
After adding these HOSTS entries, when a user attempts to access one of the listed sites, they will instead be redirected to their localhost and be unable to connect to the site's actual IP address. This effectively blocks access to the listed sites that are distributing torrents for copyrighted content.
At least some of the malware, disguised as pirated copies of a wide variety of software packages, was hosted on game chat service Discord. Other copies, distributed through Bittorrent, were also named after popular games, productivity tools, and even security products, accompanied by additional files (more on those lower down in the story) that make it appear to have originated with a well-known file sharing account on ThePirateBay.
The archives also contain a file, ranging from about 90kb to more than 200kb in size, filled with mostly gibberish data, with a randomized filename and the file suffix .nfo. In other Bittorrent archives, these .nfo files are usually plain text files with additional information about the particular software bundled in the archive.
Downloading torrents is risky for you: your IP and leaked private data being actively tracked by your ISP and Government Agencies. Protect yourself from expensive lawsuits and fines NOW! You must use a VPN. It is the only way to download torrents fully anonymous by encrypting all traffic with zero logs.
There is, however, another type which is loosely termed vigilante anti-copyright malware. I remember some years ago there was a virus that attempted to impede pirating activities. It was poorly made and barely made waves on the internet. According to security company Sophos, it seems a reincarnation of the virus has now resurfaced and you need to be careful what you download from pirate sites otherwise you will end up infected.
As shown in the image above the vigilante virus makes entries that will force Windows to think the IP addresses of the given torrent sites is 127.0.0.1. In other words, Windows will try to connect to itself and obviously since you are not PirateBay you will either see an error or if you have a server running you will see that local website instead. The same can also be accomplished by using the IP 0.0.0.0 instead of 127.0.0.1
Fortunately, the damage is easy to repair even if you are not well versed in computers. If you have been having trouble visiting torrent sites it might be because you are infected or maybe the site you want to access is just down. Try a few popular torrent sites and if all of them appear not to be working you can check your hosts folder:
The only redeeming feature of this past week was watching how Boston reacted to this senseless tragedy. Carlos Arredondo, "the man in the cowboy hat," vaulted the barriers, picked up a man with both legs blown off and pushed him to an aid station-while clamping an artery by hand so the young man didn't bleed out. A torrent of aid workers and others raced to assist and used direct pressure and impromptu tourniquets to keep the injured alive. That's what makes America and Americans different, it's those who run to the sound of the guns.
And as the week progressed, they kept running. When the Boston PD and FBI asked for any videos or photos taken of the finish line, they were overwhelmed by the response. When the Boston PD needed to lock down the city Friday morning after they and the two bombers engaged in that firefight Thursday night, a million Bostonians cooperated by staying indoors. And Friday night ... who discovered bomber #2? A local citizen who immediately called 911 instead of giving in to the base calls for vigilante justice so prevalent on the internet.
But probably the single most important contributing factor to its demise was violent, as well as secret, repression: by mobs of white Southern citizens, by vigilante gangs (especially the KKK), by local and state police forces, and by the federal government (mainly the FBI). There is no disagreement by anyone in or around the movement, or those who have studied it (not mutually exclusive categories) as to the importance of this factor. Nor is there any disagreement that the categories "mob," "vigilantes," and "cops" all overlap: mobs were instigated by the Klan and allied groups such as the Citizens Councils, cops were Klan members, cops participated in and were complicit in vigilante activity, cops stood aside and allowed mob violence against people exercising their rights as citizens. The FBI (under J. Edgar Hoover) also looked the other way on numerous occasions, delayed action in other instances, and infiltrated SNCC and attempted to destroy it in its COINTELPRO operation.[3]
Vigilantes are people (individuals or groups) who believe that the law is unwilling or incompetent to defend the social norms of a community. Using various unlawful tactics including beatings, arson, and murder, they "take the law into their own hands." The Ku Klux Klan, from the post-civil war era to date, is a vigilante organization. During the 1960s individuals acting with or without organized assistance carried out numerous bombings and assassinations. A vigilante acting, as far as we know, alone, assassinated Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. 2ff7e9595c
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