{"id":14492,"date":"2019-02-04T10:10:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T18:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/02\/04\/news-8244\/"},"modified":"2019-02-04T10:10:13","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T18:10:13","slug":"news-8244","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/02\/04\/news-8244\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie stream ebooks gun for John Wick 3 on Kindle store"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2019 17:30:37 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

We discovered a novel spam campaign over the weekend, targeting fans of John Wick on the Amazon Kindle store. The scam itself involves paying for what appears to be the upcoming third movie<\/a>, turns into a bogus ebook, and goes on to hyperlink potential victims to a collection of third-party websites.<\/p>\n

How does this begin?<\/h3>\n

With a dog, a grieving assassin, and a pencil.<\/p>\n

Actually, it begins with me hunting for John Wick graphic novels on the Kindle store. What I found isn\u2019t exactly hidden from view\u2014as you can see from the screenshots, the bogus results kick in right under the second genuine entry:<\/p>\n

\"ebooks<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to enlarge<\/p>\n

What are we looking at here?<\/h3>\n

Roughly 40 or more individual items uploaded from around January 25 to February 2, each one from a different \u201cauthor.\u201d At first glance, you might think you\u2019re looking at movies, thanks to the play button icon on each image preview. The fact that each entry is called something along the lines of \u201cJohn Wick 3: free movie HD\u201d probably helps, too.<\/p>\n

\"ebooks<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to Enlarge<\/p>\n

All of the items are on sale for a variety of prices including \u00a30.99 each, \u00a39.93, \u00a312.19, and up to an astonishing \u00a315.25 (roughly $20 USD). A few of them are listed as free, and all of them have a preview available.<\/p>\n

\"That's<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to enlarge<\/p>\n

At this point, someone seeing this may think they\u2019re actually buying a copy of John Wick 3. This is where it gets interesting.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t John Wick 3, is it?<\/h3>\n

Correct, it absolutely is not John Wick 3. What we have here is an incredibly basic ebook with a \u201cplay movie\u201d image bolted onto the preview. Opening up the preview gives us a slice of \u201ccoming soon\u201d style text for the movie, due out in May.<\/p>\n

The text reads as follows, and appears to be the same content used in each ebook:<\/p>\n

\n

John\u00a0Wick:\u00a0Chapter\u00a03\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Parabellum\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

When\u00a0we last\u00a0observed\u00a0John Wick, he wasn’t in the best\u00a0shape as he’d quite recently had a\u00a0worldwide\u00a0contract\u00a0hit\u00a0put\u00a0out\u00a0on him\u00a0toward the finish of\u00a0John\u00a0Wick: Chapter\u00a02.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

So most would agree\u00a0that\u00a0the third motion picture in the hit\u00a0activity\u00a0establishment, driven by\u00a0Keanu Reeves,\u00a0won’t be a\u00a0steady walk\u00a0around the\u00a0recreation center.\u00a0Indeed, even\u00a0the full\u00a0title,\u00a0John\u00a0Wick:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Chapter\u00a03\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Parabellum,\u00a0insights at\u00a0the massacre in store as\u00a0Reeves\u00a0clarified recently.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

“[It\u00a0means] get ready for\u00a0war. It’s a piece\u00a0of that\u00a0popular sentence,\u00a0‘Si\u00a0vis pacem, para bellum’\u00a0which interprets as,\u00a0‘On the\u00a0off\u00a0chance that\u00a0you need harmony, get ready\u00a0for\u00a0war’,” he laid out.\u00a0All\u00a0things considered,\u00a0Wick said he’d “execute them all” toward\u00a0the finish of\u00a0Chapter\u00a02.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Looking at the \u201cClick here\u201d text isn\u2019t useful on a mobile device, because in practice I couldn\u2019t get it to recognise my clicks. I also couldn\u2019t figure out what the clickable link was from looking at it on the mobile, either. With that in mind, it was time to port over to a desktop and fire up an appropriate reader.<\/p>\n

A quick port to a desktop reader later, and we now have a fully clickable link:<\/p>\n

\"Bogus<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to enlarge<\/p>\n

Where does the link go?<\/h3>\n

It takes would-be Wick watchers to:<\/p>\n

Livemovie(dot)xyz\/play(dot)php?movie=458156<\/p>\n

Which is a portal that claims to offer up multiple movies:<\/p>\n

\"movie<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to enlarge<\/p>\n

The movie we\u2019re interested in here is John Wick 3:<\/p>\n

\"wick<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to enlarge<\/p>\n

No matter what you do at this point, the only option here is \u201cbe forwarded to another site\u201d via the register button:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"register\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to enlarge<\/p>\n

Our tour of the movie world upside-down now takes us to:<\/p>\n

Flowerfun(dot)net\/en\/html\/sf\/registration\/eone.html<\/p>\n

\"movie<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to enlarge<\/p>\n

This style of site may be familiar to regular readers<\/a>. They typically claim to offer all sorts of media content and claim free sign ups, but there\u2019s usually a rolling charge or fees somewhere in the mix. The site says the following:<\/p>\n

\n

You agree that, on registration for a Membership, you authorise us to place a pre-authorisation hold (between USD $1.00 to 2.00) on your Payment Card to validate your billing address and other Payment Card information.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Depending on your region, you may find yourself sent to similar sites like:<\/p>\n

signup(dot)lymemedia(dot)net<\/p>\n

\"second<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to enlarge<\/p>\n

However, there is no further information in the T&C or Privacy Policy for either site that states exactly what sort of payment is (or isn\u2019t) expected after signing up. One thing is for certain: Someone wasting up to \u00a315 on a bogus ebook then bouncing from site to site isn\u2019t going to end up with a legitimate version of John Wick 3.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t set him off<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s tricky to flag dubious content on the Kindle store, as you have to report each title individually and give reasons. We contacted Amazon customer support and have been informed these ebooks have been escalated to the appropriate teams.<\/p>\n

Amazon has had problems with fake ebooks before<\/a>, though those were in the business of swiping author’s content and making as much money as possible before being shut down. What we have here are worthless ebooks with no content, save for clickthrough links to streaming portals. At time of writing, the ebooks we discovered are still available for purchase.<\/p>\n

If you’re on the hunt for John Wick, the lesson is clear: don’t bring an ebook to a gunfight.<\/p>\n

The post Movie stream ebooks gun for John Wick 3 on Kindle store<\/a> appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/feed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2019 17:30:37 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Over the weekend, we observed a clever spam campaign using bogus ebooks dressed as John Wick 3 movie files to push links to streaming sites. Can John and your ability avoid web based scams survive?<\/p>\n

Categories: <\/p>\n