RAUM makes torrent downloading more dangerous than ever before

While the majority of virtual community prefers remaining silent about this file-sharing form, the popularity of torrent websites is booming. Those, who tend to acquire software or game in such illegal way, know that torrent files may often contain unnecessary elements – malware. However, newly emerged RAUM shatters all anticipations. It transforms torrents into malicious cyber weapons. Now if you did not care about downloading a PUP or another malevolent virtual accessory, it is high time you got worried about your cyber security.

Crooks utilize all their creativity to come up with more powerful and threatening hacking techniques. It did not take too long for them to develop this system of malware distribution. As the IT expert Andrew Komarov noted, the malware employs a two-channel technique. It injects special tracking elements on the torrent website to identify which torrents share the utmost popularity among the users. Afterward, it removes the original torrent files with the “improved” ones. Moreover, in order to enwrap the deception into the veil of credibility, RAUM threat steals credentials of the ordinary “seeders.” Naturally, users download those torrents which possess the biggest amount of seeders – co-downloaders – in order to boost up the downloading process. However, what they may download is not only a treacherous trojan but a file-encrypting malware as well. This strategy allows the virus to significantly enlarge its distribution area. Some suspect that RAUM malware contributes to the transmission of highly destructive Cerber, CTB-Locker and Dridex viruses.

In relation to this, popular torrent distributing websites such the Pirate Bay, Kickass or Isohunt websites might be attacked soon. Observing such tendency, when torrent websites become the targets for cyber criminals, RAUM cyber campaign is surely not the last one. The main problem is that hackers develop their deceptions so well that sometimes distinguishing between the fraud and a real thing becomes a challenging task. With the new technique imitating seeders, the scale of this malware may exceed all expectations. Furthermore, the ability to evade firewall detection and other defense utilities makes the threat more dangerous. Therefore, besides upgrading and updating your security applications, restraining from using torrent domains is of crucial important, of course, if you do not want your PC to deteriorate and see all your files getting encrypted.