Soon it became dangerous to download the movie, though, as popular demand for the movie quickly put a target on downloaders’ backs and scammers soon planted malware in Spider-Man movie torrents that ReasonLabs reported used the movie to “lure in as many victims as possible.”

ReasonLabs said that the malware was “likely from a Russian torrenting site.” It took over the would-be Spider-Man movie watchers’ computers without setting off Windows Defender and with the goal of cryptomining in the background for the bad actors’ benefit.

How does a video file contain malware. Or are people running exe files to watch a video?

Yeah, I remember a plot from the last few years that involved some minor German nobility.

Can’t remember the last time it happened in any other western democracy.