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Techfire and fury

Hackers Are Using PDF Versions of ‘Fire and Fury’ to Spread Malware

By
David Z. Morris
David Z. Morris
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By
David Z. Morris
David Z. Morris
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January 22, 2018, 11:18 AM ET

A security researcher with Kaspersky Labs has found pirated digital copies of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury containing malware that could help hackers gain access to other people’s computers.

The exploit was highlighted by researcher Michael Molsner and reported by the Daily Beast. The Beast noted that the compromised version of the book, in PDF format, has only a little over 230 pages, instead of the 328 pages in the official version. In tests conducted by the Daily Beast, the included malware was easily detected by antivirus software.

Sometimes we come across strange malware 😂 8667949f8fd4ce4da0424af4208104e3 pic.twitter.com/D9l4xu62A6

— micham (@micham) January 19, 2018

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It’s intriguing that the discovery of the malware came from a researcher with Kaspersky Labs. The Russian-headquartered cybersecurity firm has recently faced allegations that it is linked to Russian intelligence services. According to U.S. intelligence reports, those agencies interfered with U.S. election systems and online news, in ways that appear to have been broadly supportive of Trump’s candidacy. The U.S. government recently banned the use of Kaspersky products by its agencies.

To avoid being a hacker’s plaything, readers should stick to official e-book versions of Fire and Fury, as sold by Amazon and other retailers. Torrent sites serving pirated material infect as many as 12 million users a month with malware.

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By David Z. Morris
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