Torrent Sites Serving Up Malware to 12 Million Visitors per Month

New research has discovered that hundreds of websites used to find links to torrent files for downloading pirated content are serving up millions of visitors malware every month.

While there is a misconception that torrent sites are only used to download pirated content, it is mainly used to facilitate the downloading of large files that aren’t illegal. However, torrents are also used to download content for free which infringes upon intellectual property rights, such as movies, television shows, music and games.

According to researchers from the Digital Citizens Alliance and RiskIQ, almost a third of the 800 main torrent search websites online today regularly serve their visitors malware. From June to August this year, those 800 popular torrent websites served malware to visitors through ads and the download of malicious files.

In total, 12 million users a month in the United States alone were exposed to malware, suggesting torrent search websites are a major attack vector for today's digital threats, and this allowed cybercriminals to earn over $70 million dollars.

If you wish to use torrent sites to download either legitimate or illegal content, you're taking a risk.

Source: ZDNet