You could even end up having to pay a fine to the copyright holder, or worse, end up in court on criminal charges. Research conducted last year revealed that popular shows like Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Westworld, and Stranger Things are all a war zone when it comes to malware. This is because hackers know they will be downloaded millions of times and are an easy way to infect people with malware, spyware , trojans and other malicious programs that can take your system and information hostage.
Game of Thrones was the show with the most infected torrents - with 30, infected torrents discovered by Kaspersky Labs. Torrenting poses some very real risks, but there are some steps that you can take to mitigate against them.
Below we have listed some tips you can use to stay safer when torrenting. For more information on any of the tips, simply click the links:. Using a VPN for torrenting is a no brainer.
A VPN encrypts all the data coming and going from your machine. This stops your ISP from being able to track the websites you visit. It also means that it has no idea whether you are downloading from torrent repositories. With a VPN connection you gain complete privacy, which means that you are free to use websites without fear of repercussions. VPNs also stop the websites and services that you visit from tracking your real IP address. As a result, anybody attempting to track the people who are downloading from torrent websites will not actually be able to get your IP address.
Admittedly, there is a targeted method that can be used to track down VPN users. This is known as a time correlation attack, which is fortunately easy to avoid if you stick to zero-log VPN providers. Keeping no logs is considered the holy grail of VPNs and is why we recommend torrenters to choose a service that includes this assurance.
Concealing your IP address also has security benefits. If someone on that peer is a hacker, they could probe your IP address for open ports or for IoT devices to add to a botnet.
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Hope this helps! They have a good reputation. I do need to experiment with them more. Leave a reply: Before commenting please: Read the article. Comment on the article. No personal information. No spam. Technology with Confidence. You can do this! Gain more confidence with your technology by subscribing to my Confident Computing weekly email newsletter.
Advice, instruction, tips and tricks to stay safe and get more out of your technology On the downside, sometimes antivirus recognizes cracked files, keygens, and other software as malicious, even when they are not.
This means you may have trouble opening certain files. If you are sure they are not harmful, you can disable your antivirus until you open them, but that is always a risk. Some torrent sites are extremely popular and used by many. The harmful torrents are reported and quickly removed. Websites like x or ThePirateBay have a huge number of seeders and leechers and are therefore much safer to use.
There are also private torrent trackers which are known to be secure, but you usually need an invitation from a member to register a new account. When you are torrenting, you are connected to peers seeds and leeches via your IP address. Because your IP address is public, your location and metadata are visible to those who may track your internet activity. For example, your business or even government. To hide your activity while downloading torrents, it is best to get a Virtual Private Network.
How to check for malware before downloading a torrent file? Ask Question. Asked 10 months ago. Active 10 months ago. Viewed 3k times. Improve this question. WckD-qwerty WckD-qwerty 13 1 1 silver badge 4 4 bronze badges. Why do you want to check it before downloading?
It encodes metadata of torrents as a dictionary. There's no possibility of embedded malware in it unless it is carefully crafted attack which is exploiting a unpatched vulnerability in a particular torrent client.
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