Fake Pirate Bay pushes software on unsuspecting visitors

James Delahunty
6 Jun 2014 13:53

A fake Pirate Bay website forces users to download a torrent client they don't need, while pushing other third-party software.
The site, located at PirateBay.com bares the Pirate Bay ship logo, along with a search box and some category filters. It has just a couple of fairly major problems though; the search doesn't actually work and it forces you to download a client you probably don't want or need. The faux pirate tracker was spotted by F-Secure.
Whatever you enter into the search box doesn't matter, as soon as you click search you wind up downloading an installer.
"You must install a torrent client in order to download your files!," a prompt reads.
Toward the end of the page is a disclaimer...

Clicking the search button starts the installation of the Deluge torrent client. This software is open source and enables the user to download torrent files. Additional software may be offered to you via the installation process. All offers are completely optional. Learn more here. This installer is compatible with all Windows operating systems. Deluge is an open source product developed by the Deluge Team, licensed under GNU GPL v3. Source code for Deluge can be found here.

F-Secure ran the installer and was, indeed, offered extra software such as "Zapp! App Discovery", and while the software is optional to install, can you see the Decline button???

The software you install may be fine and not of a malicious nature, but its the fact that the website itself is NOT the famed Pirate Bay tracker at all, it simply exists to push this client. It exists to trick people, and that's BAD, mmkay?

Sources and Recommended Reading
Fake Pirate Bay Uses Tricks To Push Unwanted Software: www.f-secure.com