RiskIQ: Study of the Presence of Malicious Content at Content Theft Sites Visited by Canadian Consumers (2018)

MPA Canada commissioned RiskIQ to analyze the prevalence and nature of malicious content on sites that facilitate copyright infringement (content theft sites) visited by Canadian consumers.

Key findings:

• Nearly 1 in 4 content theft sites distributed malware, phishing, spam, or scam content to consumer, or redirected them to such content, versus 1 in 30 control group sites
• Users are 30 to 46 times more likely to be exposed to malicious content on a content theft site than a general internet site
• Users are 100% more likely to be exposed to malicious content on a content theft site than on legal online video sites, as no malicious content was found on legal online video sites
• The most prevalent forms of malicious content based were phishing (designed to trick users into giving up personal information) and malicious redirectors (sites that redirect users to malicious content), based on assessing exact matches to malicious content.