Popular Torrent Uploader ‘CracksNow’ Caught Spreading Ransomware

It’s not at all surprising that downloading movies and
software from the torrent network could infect your computer with
malware, but it’s more heartbreaking when a popular, trusted file
uploader goes rogue.

Popular software cracks/keygens uploader “CracksNow,” who had
trusted status from many torrent sites, has now been banned from
several torrent sites after he was repeatedly found distributing
the malware bundled with his uploads.

In recent months, according to TorrentFreak,
many downloaders complained that the files they downloaded, shared
by CracksNow on torrents, found containing GandCrab ransomware and
other malware that can do severe damage to computers.
^[1]

Discovered earlier last year, GandCrab is a widespread ransomware
threat, like every other ransomware in the market, that encrypts
all files on an infected system and blackmails victims to pay a
ransom in digital currency to unlock them.

GandCrab
ransomware^[2] was being distributed
late last month via a massive spam campaign that leveraged phishing
emails, containing an attached malicious Microsoft Word document to
deliver the malware.

The Pirate Bay, TorrentGalaxy, and 1337x are among the popular
torrent websites that banned the account of CracksNow.

“He was banned by myself because I found ransomware in his
uploads. I also checked the same uploads from him on a couple other
torrent sites and got the same results. I immediately alerted their
staff about it so they could investigate and take appropriate
action, which they did,” the 1337x admin told TF.

“I must admit that it is rare for a trusted uploader of this
caliber to go rogue. It’s normally new guys that have the infected
files. CracksNow was a trusted uploader and had been warned in the
past but only for misdemeanors. To the best of our knowledge, the
remaining torrents are ransomware free, but his account is due for
removal.”

Some torrent sites have employed a team to confirm and verify
most uploaded files, but when Google itself cannot detect malware
within every mobile app uploaded to its Play Store, then how
torrent sites are supposed to assure the same with any level of
efforts.

Since cracks, patches, and key generators more often include
malware, The Hacker News advises users to most certainly avoid
downloading software (executable) files from torrent sites and
instead, rely on only trusted sources.