Watch out for scams offering season 7 episode 5 of Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones fans should be aware of a number of Internet scams purporting to offer a “leaked” 5th episode of the fantasy TV series.

Production company HBO over the last week suffered a high profile data breach that led to the script of the 4th episode of the much anticipated 7th season being leaked online.

Shortly after that, a low quality version of the 4th episode was leaked online as well, and those responsible soon made threats of other leaked data being made available shortly.

And soon after that, a rumour that claimed the 5th episode of season 7 – due to be broadcast in the US on August 13th – had also been leaked online.

However, that rumour may not have been true. While we cannot determine definitively whether or not the episode has been stolen by cyber intruders and is available somewhere online, we can say that at the time of writing the vast majority of websites (including links on Torrenting websites) are leading to malware. If a leaked 5th episode had indeed been leaked online, it wouldn’t be difficult for those who know where to look to locate it.

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The hackers who compromised HBO’s data servers last week have been deliberately vague as to what information they managed to obtain in a purported 1.5 terabyte data breach, but many experts have expressed doubt that the 5th episode of the Game of Thrones 7th season is amongst the information stolen.

But that hasn’t stopped a number of cyber crooks using the apparent leak to lure Internet users to online traps. Sites claiming to stream the leaked episode are tricking visitors into installing malware disguised as video player updates, and fake listings on torrent sites like Pirate Bay are packaging malware into torrent downloads disguised as the episode.

So if you are looking for a sneaky (and illegal) download of the latest episode of Game of Thrones, you may very well end up with a nasty malware infection instead. Consider yourself warned!