Research Finds Visiting Pirate Sites Leads to More Malware

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rgMekanic

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TorrentFreak is reporting that new research from shows the more time spent on pirate sites leads to increased malware. In a paper published by Carnegie Mellon University titled "Does Online Piracy make Computers Insecure?" they observed the computer habits of 253 people, and found that doubling the amount of time spent on pirate sites, there is a 20 percent increase in malware count.

The article on TorrentFreak also states that the average number of malware files found on a pirate's machine is 1.5, compared to 1.4 for people who never visit any pirate sites. So if you are getting your Linux isos from 3rd party places, it seems like malware shouldn't be much of a concern.

The research estimates that, when someone doubles the amount of traffic spent on a pirate site, this person adds an extra 0.05 of a piece of malware per month, with the average being 0.24. So, most people encounter no malware in a typical month. This means that pirate sites are an increased a risk, but it’s not as extreme as sometimes portrayed.
 
mshckd.gif
 
Did we really need to research this to come to this conclusion?
 
A few things - small sample size, very close in comparison, what knowledge level of user, what protection they have, etc..

I know people that are pirates, and they tend to keep everything up to date. It's like banging hookers. Sure, the STD rate is higher, but you go in knowing this and you go in protected. I wouldn't visit any pirating site without being protected (NoScript, AdBlock, AV, Malwarebytes, etc.), and then download reputable things with good reviews, scan them, etc..

I've cleaned computers from people that download a lot of stuff all willy nilly with an expired AV... Loaded with malware. User didn't know any better and didn't take any precautions.
 
Ur_Mom said:
.......I know people that are pirates, and they tend to keep everything up to date. It's like banging hookers. Sure, the STD rate is higher, but you go in knowing this ...........
Click to expand...


So we just need to stick with the high class hookers?
 
Pirate sites are like cheap motels with bedbugs as addition for your pleasure - what else do you expect?
 
Over the 30 or so years I have been using computers (yes, the path through piracy was explored as well), I have never had any virus or malware infection. It's just common sense really, don't be dumb. There is protection available, use it.
 
Based on my own research of just surfing, the same can be said about pr0n sites.
 
I wonder if these researchers get paid and if so, how much?
 
Zepher said:
I wonder if these researchers get paid and if so, how much?
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I pulled up the paper to look and immediately noticed this:
This material is based upon work supported by the NSA under contract# H9823014C0140. Rahul Telang also acknowledges generous support of IDEA (Initiative of Digital Entertainment Analytics) and help provided by Sarah Pearman, Jeremy Thomas, Yaswanth Jeganathan, Hyunjae Lee.
Click to expand...
 
tetris42 said:
The fact that the difference is this small speaks very poorly of the rest of the internet.
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My assumption was that pirates had better AV but the study states, "users visiting infringing sites are less (not more) likely to install an antivirus (AV) software."
 
If people visit those sites they should just sandbox the damn thing...
 
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