Crunchyroll Hijacked to Redirect to Malware Sites; How to Clean Up Infection
Crunchyroll, one of the top online destination for anime streaming, was the victim of an attack that rigged the site to redirect to a fake page that pushes out malware to visitors. For several hours on Saturday, Nov. 4, their Cloudflare hosting service was leading viewers to malicious content until the issue was corrected.
Their parent company Ellation has since posted an advisory on Sunday, Nov. 5, explaining what happened. This news update also doubles as an online guide for users for cleaning up their system, should they happen to have downloaded the malicious file from the attack.
Crunchyroll administrators alerted their users on Saturday, before taking down their website for cleanup. "ATTENTION ALL CRUNCHYROLL USERS!! Please DO NOT access our website at the current time. We are aware of the issues and are working on it!!" the website's team posted on their official handle on Saturday morning.
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Ellation warned users that if they were on the Crunchyroll site using Windows from 6:30 a.m. EDT to 12 a.m. EDT on Nov. 4, they should check if they have downloaded a malware file. During that time, attackers have managed to find their way into the Cloudflare configuration of the website.
Cloudflare is a content delivery service that ensures users can stream content and video from one of the nearest servers strategically placed around the world. The Cloudflare service should redirect users to the Crunchyroll servers, until hackers changed it so that viewers were sent to a fake website on another server instead.
This fake website prompted visitors to download "CrunchyViewer.exe," a malware custom made to infect Windows PCs.
Users who have downloaded this file are advised to delete it immediately and perform an antivirus scan on their system, just to be safe. Members who have downloaded and installed the file are advised to delete the installer, the malicious "svchost.exe" file, and traces of the malware in the system registry through a series of steps.
Crunchyroll fans who have trouble following are encouraged to get in touch with the customer support team as well.
