Trusted Reviews is supported by its audience. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission. Learn more.

Game of Thrones: Honour among thieves exists when it comes to illegal torrents

Thinking about crossing over to the dark side to watch Game of Thrones (GoT) season 8 illegally? Well first, shame on you. Go and sit on the naughty step!

As it goes, this will likely be the worst punishment doled out for your nefarious wrong-doing, short of law-enforcement catching and making an example of you – as they have many times before.

Related: Best 4K TV

Speaking to Trusted Reviews, security experts from F-Secure, McAfee and Kaspersky confirmed that while illegal downloads and streams can come laced with malware, the threat isn’t as big as you might have thought.

Tom Van de Wiele, principal security consultant at F-Secure, told Trusted Reviews that this is largely because many of the big sites that are hosting GoT content illegally have created peer-review systems to protect repeat customers.

“There are indeed people offering malware posing as popular content, whatever the popular media of the day is. In this case, GoT. The fake episode poses as a media file, or contains a fake codec or other fake piece of software pretending to facilitate watching the episode,” he explained.

“The user runs the malicious program and the computer system is now backdoored and under the control of the attacker. As far as how much of this works; the online – albeit illegally motivated – communities will quickly identify the fake ones and vote them down or remove them.”

Related: Best free antivirus

John Fokker, head of cyber investigations at McAfee, reiterated Wiele’s sentiment, adding that the more significant risk is criminal prosecution, and that hackers are more effectively targeting users using tertiary hooks such as GoT spoilers and fan theories.

“These streams are illegally broadcasting live content, so by accessing them you’re putting yourself at risk of prosecution. The risk isn’t worth it! People must also remain cautious when searching for fan theories or spoilers online,” he said.

“Emilia Clarke, who portrays Daenerys Targaryen in the TV drama came in at #17 in McAfee’s 2018 Most Dangerous Celebrities study. Cybercriminals use the allure of celebrities – such as Clarke – to trick unsuspecting users into visiting malicious websites. These sites can be used to install malware on a victim’s device, or even to steal their personal information or passwords.”

The news is a marked turnaround on malware figures being quoted during season seven of Game of Thrones.

“With the final series of Game of Thrones now underway, it’s shocking to see that the show has been pirated 54,261,910 times. According to our research, Game of Thrones was one of the most commonly used shows for cybercriminals to disguise as malware in 2018, accounting for 17% of all infected pirated content,” said Fokker.

Related: Best VPN

In a report pubished last year, TorrentFreak revealed that more than 1000 suits were filed against individual pirates in the US during 2017. And the total has reportedly since increased.

We’d recommend avoiding using illegal stream and download sites, regardless of the hacker threat. Police, legitimate broadcasters and creative companies are getting increasingly proactive in regards to shutting them down, and individuals have been targeted in the past. You’d be better off grabbing a Now TV subscription.

Do you think the crackdown on pirates is working? Let us know on Twitter @TrustedReviews.

Why trust our journalism?

Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.

Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.

author icon

Editorial independence

Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.

author icon

Professional conduct

We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

Trusted Reviews Logo

Sign up and get the best deals straight to your phone

Skip the hunt - get the latest discounts delivered directly to WhatsApp by signing up to the Trusted deals Whatsapp Channel.

Get Access