The Pirate Bay | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

It seems like the prolonged downtime and technical difficulties faced by The Pirate Bay over the past several weeks were due to a series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against the widely-popular torrent website by malicious actors. For those unaware, The Pirate Bay was down for more than a week with most visitors displayed a Cloudflare error mentioning that a "bad gateway" is causing problems, while others served with a "database maintenance" message prompting users to check back in 10 minutes. Though the site's moderators did not reveal any details regarding the Pirate Bay downtime, a reputable source with a direct link with the operators told Torrent Freak that the recent Pirate Bay downtime issues "were likely caused by malicious actors who DDoSed the site's search engine with specially crafted search queries." The attacker(s) flooded The Pirate Bay with "searches that break the Sphinx search daemon," effecti...

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. 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 was being distributed late last month via a...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

The world's popular torrent download website, The Pirate Bay , has again been in a new controversy—this time over secretly planting an in-browser cryptocurrency miner on its website that utilizes its visitors' CPU processing power in order to mine digital currencies. The Pirate Bay is the most popular and most visited file-sharing website predominantly used to share copyrighted material free of charge. The site has usually been in the news for copyright infringement by movie studios, music producers and software creators. The Pirate Bay has recently been caught generating revenue by secretly utilizing CPU power of its millions of visitors to mine a Bitcoin alternative called Monero without their knowledge. The modern Internet depends on advertising revenue to survive, which apparently sometimes spoils users' experience. But The Pirate Bay is trying to choose a different approach. Visitors to the Pirate Bay recently discovered a JavaScript-based cryptocurrency mine...

Two of the three co-founders of The Pirate Bay— Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg —have been ordered by a Finnish court to pay record labels $477,800 in compensation for copyright infringement on the site. Last year in a similar case, Helsinki District Court in Finland ordered Peter Sunde , the third co-founder of The Pirate Bay, to pay nearly $395,000 (350,000 Euros) in damages to several major record labels, including Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music. However, Sunde did not pay any penalty yet, and instead, he later announced his plans to sue those record labels for defamation. The Pirate Bay is still the world's most popular torrent website that has proven to be an elusive hub for illegal copyrighted contents, even after a series of raids and shutdown of its multiple domains , including the primary .SE domain. All the three co-founders of The Pirate Bay were facing criminal copyright infringement and abuse of electronic communications charges...

The Pirate Bay — a widely popular file-sharing website predominantly used to share copyrighted material free of charge — is once again in trouble, this time in Europe. The European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled today that Dutch ISPs can block access to The Pirate Bay, as the Swedish file-hosting website facilitates an "act of communication" by allowing users to post and obtain torrents for pirated films, TV shows and music for free. Dutch anti-piracy group Stichting Brein (BREIN) in 2009 filed a case against local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) Ziggo and XS4ALL, and in 2012, the District Court of The Hague ruled that the ISPs must block users from accessing The Pirate Bay. However, Ziggo and XS4ALL, ISPs successfully overturned the decision two years later with the court ruling against BREIN and concluding that the blockade restricted the internet providers entrepreneurial freedoms. BREIN group then took the same case to the Supreme Court, who eventually r...

After the closures of Kickass Torrents and Torrentz.eu, the torrent community now bids farewell to ExtraTorrent, once the second most popular torrent site worldwide. ExtraTorrent has officially shut down. Users should stop searching for 'extratorrents unblock' and 'extratorrents proxy' websites. In a clear message on its homepage, ExtraTorrent announced on Wednesday that it has permanently shut down, bidding "farewell" to its millions of users. The shutdown message reads: "ExtraTorrent has shut down permanently. ExtraTorrent with all mirrors goes offline. We permanently erase all data. Stay away from fake ExtraTorrent websites and clones. Thanks to all ET supporters and the torrent community. ET was a place to be..." The message does not explain the reason for the shutdown but indicates that the popular torrent index will not return. Launched in November 2006, ExtraTorrent became the world's second-largest torrent index after The Pirate Ba...

One of the founders of notorious file-sharing website The Pirate Bay has been ordered to pay a fine worth nearly US$400,000 to several major record labels after their content was shared illegally via the platform. The penalty has been imposed on The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde by a court in Helsinki, Finland. Interestingly, Sunde, who already left the notorious file sharing site in 2009, said on Twitter that he lost the court case he did not even know about. The court case was brought by the Finnish divisions of Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music and EMI, accusing the Pirate Bay of illegally sharing the music of 60 of their artists through its service. The artists mentioned in the brief included " Juha Tapio, Teräsniska, Chisu, Deniece Williams, Suvi Vesa-Matti Loiri, Michael Monroe, Anna Abreau, Antti Tuisku, and Children of Bodom, " according to the local outlet Digitoday . However, the recording division did not accuse Sunde of direct infringeme...

The Pirate Bay has fought many legal battles since its launch in 2003 to keep the website operational for the last 13 years. However, this time The Pirate Bay is suffering a major blow after the Swedish Court ruled Thursday that it will take away the domain names 'ThePirateBay.se' and 'PirateBay.se' of the world's most popular torrent website and will hand over them to the state. As its name suggests, The Pirate Bay is one of the most popular file-sharing torrent site predominantly used for downloading pirated or copyrighted media and programs free of charge. Despite the criminal convictions, the torrent site remains functioning although it has moved to different Web domains several times. However, this time, The Pirate Bay loses its main .SE domain, the world's 225th most popular website according to the Alexa ranking, according to Swedish newspaper DN . "In common with the District Court ruling the Court of Appeal finds that there is a b...

The 38-year-old rapper Kanye West is at the centre of controversy once again. West is himself a Pirate Lover just like everyone else, and he proved it today by sharing a photo of his laptop screen on Twitter. The rapper tweeted an ill-judged picture on Tuesday night to show what he was listening to on YouTube ( Sufjan Stevens' 'Death With Dignity' song ), but his fans discovered something he would have hide if realized before sharing that snap. Taking a closer look at the address bar was quite revealing, showing two very interesting tabs: The notorious file-sharing website The Pirate Bay MediaDownloader Pirate Bay Offers Tech Support to Kanye West West's recent album The Life of Pablo was involved in a piracy concern. He was so outraged when he saw his recent album was being pirated by 500,000 downloads in just two days that he considered taking legal action against The Pirate Bay . However, in a recent tweet West accidentally revealed his own pirate habi...

The controversial file-sharing website The Pirate Bay will still be running in Sweden as the District Court of Stockholm on Friday ruled that they be unable to force the internet service providers (ISPs) to block the website from operating. The Pirate Bay is an infamous Swedish search engine predominantly used worldwide for pirating material, such as software, movies, music files and TV shows, entirely free of charge. Numerous ISPs around Europe block the Pirate Bay, but the notorious site will not be inaccessible in its home country Sweden, at least for now, according to the local media . Last year, a lawsuit was filed by Warner Music, Sony Music, Universal Music, Nordisk Film and the Swedish Film Industry in order to force Swedish ISP broadband companies to block the Pirate Bay, claiming them liable for the infringements of its customers. Also Read:   The Pirate Bay Runs on 21 "Raid-Proof" Virtual Machines To Avoids Detection However, the Broadband...

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg , the co-founder of the notorious file-sharing website The Pirate Bay , has been released from a Sweden prison following three years behind bars for hacking and copyright offenses. Yes, Svartholm Warg, also known as Anakata , is a free man again. Svartholm was convicted on both Swedish copyright offences and Danish hacking conspiracy connected to The Pirate Bay. The news comes just a few months after the third and last founder of Pirate Bay Fredrik Neij (also known as  TiAMO ) was released from a Swedish prison after serving his 10-month prison sentence. Svartholm has not yet made any public statements following his release from a Swedish prison on Saturday. His release was reported by Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter . However, the release was confirmed by Warg's mother Kristina Svartholm on Twitter . "Yes, #anakata is free now. No more need to call for #freeanakata. Thank you everyone for your important support during thes...

The four co-founders of The Pirate Bay, the world's most popular torrent website, have been cleared of charges alleging criminal copyright infringement and abuse of electronic communications in a Belgian court. The Pirate Bay co-founders Gottfrid Svartholm , Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström were acquitted by a Belgian court located in Mechelse after it was found that they could not be held responsible for the file-sharing website after selling it in 2006. The Pirate Bay's founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, the website representative Peter Sunde and the website investor Carl Lundström were facing criminal charges related to their involvement with the torrenting site that has proven to be an elusive hub for illegal copyrighted content. The Pirate Bay was Sold to other Investors in 2006 However, the case fell apart when the Pirate Bay's co-founders said that they were not involved in any activity related to the website after they sold it to Re...

Fredrik Neij , the third and the last founder of the infamous file-sharing website The Pirate Bay , was released on Monday from a Swedish prison. Neij, who goes by the online moniker " TiAMO ", was arrested by Thai immigration authorities at the end of November 2014 while he was trying to cross the border illegally from Laos to Thailand and then extradited to a prison in Skänninge, Sweden. Fredrik Neij is Now a FREE Man However, after his ten-month prison sentence, Neij is now a free man and has already reunited with family and friends, TorrentFreak reports . The 37-year-old fugitive Swede man was first convicted of aiding copyright infringements by a Swedish court in 2009 and escaped arrest by fleeing to Laos. However, Neji's passport was revoked in 2012, and then after two years in November 2014, he was arrested under an Interpol warrant near the Laotian border after four years on the run. Before his arrest, Neji was living and hosting a f...

Since its return over a month ago, The Pirate Bay — the infamous peer-to-peer file sharing website that has provided only the finest in illegal torrents for more than a decade — has suffered a lot to keep the ship afloat. But, now TPB is experiencing yet more downtime. The Pirate Bay (TPB) torrent search website was down this morning, and users visiting the websites were redirected to the "mobile-friendly" version of its notorious website called The Mobile Bay , but the website wasn't working either. Both the websites displayed identical ' 403 Forbidden ' error messages. The outage was first spotted by TorrentFreak, which noted that The Pirate Bay has been struggling to keep the website online since it returned late January after going dark from the Internet following a raid in Sweden late last year in which several servers and other equipment were seized by the police in Stockholm. The actual cause of the latest downtime wasn't clear that ...

Remember RapidShare ? Once one of the world's most popular and first ever one-click online file hosting and cloud storage website on the Internet. The company has announced that it will shut down its business at the end of next month. RapidShare file hosting service announced its shut down Tuesday through a notice on its official website, saying that it will stop active service on March 31, 2015. All user accounts on the website will no longer be available after this date, and all files will be deleted automatically. WHAT RAPIDSHARE USERS MUST DO ? " We strongly recommend all customers to secure their data. After March 31st, 2015 all accounts will no longer be accessible and will be deleted automatically ," the notice on RapidShare official website reads. Just two days back, the most popular Torrent website KickAss Torrents banned by the .so registry (Somalian registry), forcing the site's operators to switch to another domain. Now, suddenly the ol...

So far, the torrent users didn't forget the incident of The Pirate Bay seizer, that another most popular Torrent website, KickAss Torrents , has been kicked off by the Somalian registry. KickAss Torrent download website has lost access to its Kickass.so - the Somalian domain with millions of unique visitors per day and the most visited torrent website on the Internet. The domain is currently offline and, according to TorrentFreak, the Somalia based KickAss Torrent download domain was recently listed as "banned" by the .so registry, forcing the site's operators to switch to another domain. Just like The Pirate Bay , KickAss Torrents is also a well-known torrent download service that has often been criticized for providing easy access to pirated content, so it's no surprise that the ban came following a complaint received by Somalian authorities. KickAss Torrents website stopped working around 4 am ET and is still offline and will not be returning. Howeve...

After almost two months of untimely and unexpected outage, The Pirate Bay (TPB) finally came back this weekend. But the re-launch of the infamous torrent-indexing website raised a question among those suspicious about this new setup — Is it really The Pirate Bay? A few days back we reported that The Pirate Bay – a widely popular file-sharing website predominantly used to share copyrighted material free of charge – had made its return to the Internet once again after suffering two months of outage following a police raid in Sweden late last year. Many users, including I, thought the site left dead as last took down was the longest outage the torrenting site has ever experienced. But history repeats and The Pirate Bay made its way a day before it claimed. Pirate lovers around the world rejoiced while others noticed something very suspicious. IS THE FBI RUNNING THE PIRATE BAY ? The truth behind The Pirate Bay , like who was driving the re-emergence of the site or who w...

A wave of excitement in The Pirate Bay lovers. After almost two months of untimely and unexpected outage, the infamous torrent-indexing website The Pirate Bay (TPB) made a defiant return on Saturday. The Pirate Bay — a widely popular file-sharing website predominantly used to share copyrighted material free of charge — went dark from the Internet following a raid in Sweden late last year. In response to a complaint from Swedish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance, the police raided The Pirate Bay's server room in Stockholm and seized several servers and other equipment. Though, its almost impossible to keep The Pirate Bay offline for too long, last took down was the longest outage the torrenting site has ever experienced. The site is back one day early based on the countdown timer that was running on the official domain of TPB, i.e. thepiratebay.se . Anyone visiting thepiratebay.se domain today will be welcomed with a functioning site. People are already uploading and downloa...

The Pirate Bay — an infamous Torrent website predominantly used to share copyrighted material free of charge — could be relaunched on 1st February, the date the website has long been expected to return. The website went dark from the Internet following a raid in Sweden last month. After a complaint was filed by a group called the Rights Alliance, Swedish Police officers raided The Pirate Bay's server room in Stockholm and seized several servers and other equipment. Last month's raid comes almost a month after the arrest of Fredrik Neij, the third and final founder of The Pirate Bay, at the border between Laos and Thailand on November 3. He was convicted by Swedish courts for sharing copyrighted material more than five years ago. The Pirate Bay homepage is displaying a logo of Phoenix once again with a timer counting down to 1 February. The search box and categories are back under the flag, but are not active yet. At the bottom of the page, a pirate ship sails tow...

Surprisingly, from yesterday a cartoon picture of the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) named Kim Jong-un appearing on The Pirate Bay website 's homepage, but WHY? At the beginning of this month, The Pirate Bay — an infamous Torrent website predominantly used to share copyrighted material such as films, TV shows and music files, free of charge — went dark from the internet during a raid operation carried out by Swedish Police. However, a number of clones and rumors of rebirths of the infamous The Pirate Bay (TPB) appeared online, but the official domain of The Pirate Bay ( ThePirateBay.se ) remained inaccessible, until last week. ThePirateBay.se , the official domain of TPB returned to life, but without an archive of torrent files and now showing a ticking clock, with the Jolly Roger (skull and crossbones Pirate flag) waving in the background, and an image with apparently random characters with the filename AES.png , hintin...