Rightscorp's Settlement Site Blocked As 'Malware' By Respected Antivirus Software Provider

from the not-helping-with-the-whole-legitimacy-thing dept

Mon, Aug 3rd 2015 1:44pm — Tim Cushing

The anti-piracy catastrophe that is Rightscorp continues its slide into disrespectability, albeit inadvertently. Currently facing lawsuits for robocall phone harassment and the realities of a business model that largely relies on the kindness of accused strangers, Rightscorp is barely upright.

Granted, this latest mini-debacle isn't necessarily its fault. At least, not directly or intentionally. But it is a problem nonetheless, especially if Rightscorp is still expecting alleged infringers to beat a path to its virtual doorstep to pay up for their illicit activities. Ernesto at TorrentFreak has more bad news for the trollish company.

For the past few days prominent anti-virus vendor Bitdefender has been blocking the company’s website after categorizing it as malware.

People who receive a notice from Rightcorp are welcomed with the following popover when they try to access the settlement page. The notice is limited to the settlement pages and doesn’t appear on the regular website.

This has led to some speculation as to how Rightscorp became malware, at least in the eyes of Bitdefender. While some antivirus programs kick out more false positives than a Total Wipes DMCA takedown request, Bitdefender doesn't appear to have that reputation.

Ernesto speculates this may be due to the large number of settlement emails all providing links back to Rightscorp's "secure" (it's a bit more secure now…) payment site. Sophisticated Jane Doe of Fight Copyright Trolls points out in the comments that the page itself is a joke, what with settlement screens still providing "share" links to a variety of social media services… except that they all link back to the notice screen itself.

It could be that Bitdefender views pages that demand credit card information without any sort of preamble (a "shopping cart" screen/an opening splash page informing purchasers that they've arrived at the right site, etc.) as potentially untrustworthy and better safe than sorry.

As of right now, this appears to be a fluke error on Bitdefender's part, as it is the only antivirus/malware service to have blocked the page. Maybe this "misunderstanding" will be cleared up in a few days. Or maybe Bitdefender users with settlement notices will continue to be steered clear by their AV software. Either way, it's hardly helpful that a respected antivirus service feels the site is questionable enough that it has constructed a tiny dam right in the middle of Rightscorp's trickling revenue stream.

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Filed Under: blocking, copyright trolls, settlements
Companies: bitdefender, rightscorp

11 Comments

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Ninja (profile), 3 Aug 2015 @ 12:16pm

To be honest, Malwares are at least successful in what they are meant to do. More than Rightscorp anyway.
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Nilt (profile), 3 Aug 2015 @ 2:24pm

I wouldn't be terribly surprised to learn a malware-related bad actor (as opposed to Rightscorp themselves) had infected the site with actual malware. I mean, what better target could you ask for than someone not well educated enough to consider paying them? This is assuming, for the moment, that Rightscorp themselves hadn't placed suspicious looking code on the site themselves. I can easily envision some tracking garbage they may have thought to be a good idea being placed live on there ...
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Aug 2015 @ 2:37pm

Re:
Do you think they might now sue?
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That One Guy (profile), 3 Aug 2015 @ 2:52pm

Come now, what could possibly be dodgy looking about a site demanding credit card info from large numbers of people unless they want something bad to happen to them?

Nope, can't possibly imagine why an anti-virus company might look at that site and think, "You know, they might be up to no good, maybe we should flag that site as unsafe." /s
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Vincent Giannell, 3 Aug 2015 @ 4:48pm

Re: Re:
They're going to try.
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Honey breath Houndig, 3 Aug 2015 @ 7:15pm

Mal content
For the past few days I have been receiving the same message said to be from Norton. When trying to access my own Wordpress site while at a local grocery &a coffee shop. When viewing details, the report states no malware detected, and if I want to complain, contact my administrator (myself).

Just more general degradation of online life.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Aug 2015 @ 12:58am

To be honest the page should be flagged in a different way;
"malicious website" maybe ?
I expect a page to be flagged as malware ONLY if it ACTUALLY contains malware (as in actual code that can cause harm).
Tagging pages with questionable content as malware is pretty much censorship by a different name.
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Berenerd (profile), 4 Aug 2015 @ 6:15am

Rightscorp probably sent a "settlement" letter to some of the guys/gals at Bitdefender.....
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observer, 4 Aug 2015 @ 6:39am

Re:
I don't think it's any different from a phishing site being flagged.
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observer, 4 Aug 2015 @ 6:40am

These are the same people whose official website says of their activities, "Yes, it's real." Really inspires confidence, that - it's my experience that any business that actually has to tell you that it's legit isn't.
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andro, 7 Nov 2015 @ 11:48pm

Nice
i dont think that this is anyhow diff from any bad site gettin banned
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