Ready to play? Squid Game becomes an attractive entice to spread cyber risks

The month following its launch, the Squid Game, a South Korean drama TV series, turned Netflix into a huge series, with over 111 million viewers.

Following the demand from viewers, cybercriminals should not be ashamed to benefit from fans' enthusiasm to watch this season, with well-known fraudulent tactics ignored.

Kaspersky's experts share their details about the most common and complex squid Game threats found in the wild, as well as Trojan, adware, and Halloween criminal assets.

Squid Game Introduction

It is named after various parts of the squid's body painted on any arena in which it was played.

The Squid Game is best remembered for portraying South Korean children's games with a violent twist. Financially desperate players are made to compete in a series of six jobs to win the biggest prize money, but losing at any moment results in death.

The games range from the world-famous ones such as "Red Light, Green Light" and the tug of war to those South Korean natives who are like a challenge.

Why do we call it Squid Game?

The show's first scene features a retreat when a group of children from an undisclosed location played a game of squid ojingeo.

Using a specific playground (which may be shaped like a squid), two teams compete. The attacking team must sneak into the "squid" and reach a certain part of the field to win, while the defenders must force the attackers out of the frontiers.

According to the Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, the show itself is named after the game, which is the true history of South Korea.

This article is likely chosen from creator Hwang Dong-hyuk's desire to make the series stand out as a clear Korean story.

He was reportedly inspired by other survival game stories like Battle Royale, The Hunger Games, and Kaiji, and he wanted the same story focused on his culture.

Download a squid game episode and a few viruses

From September to October 2021, we have received vast data for completely different offline records whose names point to Squid Game.

In most of the reviews, we found Trojan downloaders ready to set up different malicious packages. However, there were various Trojans and adware. One of the cybercriminals' programs worked like this;

The patient was allegedly proven to be a cartoon model for the first game in a row. At the same time, unveiled a Trojan that could steal information from multiple customers' browsers and send it back to attackers' servers.

The shortcut is also added to one of the many folders, which can launch Trojan every time a program is started.

Kaspersky also discovered a malware program that uses squid Game—hoping to get the episode of Squid Game. Someone has downloaded the Trojan.

When a program is introduced in a tool, it asks the control server to complete the tasks.

This could be as:

• Opening a tab inside the browser or sending an SMS to numbers found on the control server.
• This Trojan is still being distributed in illegal app stores and on many sites below to consider various fashion activities, video games, and books.

An example of a web page for phishing scams that provides Squid Game sales.

Image source – freepik.com

Get the squid game online and lose your thinking skills and knowledge

In addition to the old criminal identity theft pages provided by Squid Game broadcasts, we also found many pages offering a competitive online game model to win the top prize - 100 BNB (Binance coin).

The participant does not receive the promised reward and eventually wastes their knowledge or downloads a computer program that is not suitable for the computer.

An example of a web page for identity theft is playing Squid Game online to win 100 BNB.

Squid Game to hit new lure was a question of time. Like any other trending topic, cybercriminals have a good idea about what works and what doesn't as the 'Squid Game' plays out.

We see some sensitive identity theft pages that offer to buy visual suits on display; others invite users to play games at an online show. Regulators end up losing their data, money and installing malicious software on their devices.

Users need to check the authenticity of the websites when looking for a source to stream the show or buy something for sale, a response Anton V. Ivanov, who has security information at Kaspersky.

Bits of Advice to prevent scams and malware

To prevent malicious patient malicious packages and scams, Kaspersky advises clients to:

• Check the authenticity of Internet sites before accessing personal information and use only official web pages to watch or find movies. Double-check URL codecs and company spell recognition.
• Consider the extension of the record data you may be downloading - the video file will not have a .exe or .msi extension.
• Use reliable security fixes, such as Kaspersky Security Cloud, detecting malicious attachments and preventing criminal websites from stealing sensitive information.
• Avoid links that promise preview of the content, and in case you have doubts about the authenticity of the content, check it out with your entertainment provider.