Pirated Software Helped An Unknown Malware Infect 3.2 Million PCs

hackThere are many reasons not to download pirated software, with the most obvious being that it’s illegal and you’re essentially “stealing”. The second reason is that because you can’t always trust the source of pirated software, it could lead to bad situations like this, where recently a report from NordLocker revealed how an unknown malware flew under the radar for two years, infecting 3.2 million PCs in the process.

The malware, which is unnamed due to the fact that it wasn’t discovered until recently, is said to have managed to spread to millions of PCs thanks to it hiding inside of pirated software like video games like tools like Adobe’s Photoshop. As a result, this malware also stole an estimated 1.2 terabytes worth of personal information from the computers it infected, like files from the Desktop and Download folders, image files, Word files, text files, and more.

It also seems that the malware even managed to activate the victim’s website and take photos of them without their knowledge. NordLocker has since reported the malware and the existence of the database containing the information to US-CERT. The email addresses part of the database have also been uploaded to Have I Been Pwned, so if you’re wondering if your computer might have been one of those compromised, you can head on over to the website and check.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Computers
Tags: Hack, Malware, Piracy, Security, Social Hit