KickAssTorrents down: Alternatives spring up, but are created to steal their users’ bank account details
KAT disappeared in a mysterious takedown – and while others have sprung back up, they’re not all good
A crane destroys over one million pirated music, movie and
software CDs and DVDs in a campaign against piracy organised by the
government in Algiers, Algeria Reuters
The
world’s most popular torrenting site has been taken down – and others
are using it to trick people into giving away their most personal
information.
KickAssTorrents, previously pirates’ favourite tracking site, disappeared last month after an unusual takedown. The site is now inaccessible, but others have sprung up in its wake.
But many of those mirrors – built to look as if they are the site
itself – actually put their users in danger. The big different that they
have from the actual KickAssTorrents is that they force their users to
sign up for an account – and so give over their credit card details.
In its previous form, the site was mostly safe for users and offered
everything that was on the proper KickAssTorrents. But it appears that
somebody else has bought the domain, and seized on the fact that the
original site is unavailable to try and trick people into handing over
their details.
It’s far from the only potentially dangerous site that is taking
advantage of the removal of KickAssTorrents. A range of mirrors have
popped up on the internet – and while some offer a genuine way of
getting access to the content that the old site provided, others appear
either to include malicious files like viruses, or to be using similar
techniques to trick visitors into handing over information.
Source: Independentco
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