The Pirate Bay torrent website blocked by Chrome, Safari and Firefox for phishing and ‘web forgery’
Torrent lovers all over the world were caught in a bit of mess since yesterday as Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers are blocking access The Pirate Bay website for indulging in phishing.
According to all three browsers, Thepiratebay.se is a “deceptive site” or “web forgery,” that may steal user information. When torrent lovers visit the TPB website through any of the above browsers, instead of a page displaying the iconic pirate ship, they are presented with an ominous red warning banner.
“Deceptive site ahead: Attackers on Thepiratebay.se may trick you into doing something dangerous like installing software or revealing your personal information,” the Chrome warning reads.
Firefox users may encounter a similar banner, branding The Pirate Bay as a “web forgery” which may trick users into sharing personal information. This may lead to identity theft or other fraud.
“Web forgeries are designed to trick you into revealing personal or financial information by imitating sources you may trust. Entering any information on this web page may result in identity theft or other fraud,” the browser warns.
Google’s safebrowsing page status for TPB lists it as a dangerous phishing website. While all browsers at some point of time have blacklisted TPB for malware this is the first time it has been listed for phishing or ‘web forgery’
However, it is very likely that even the current problems are related to issues caused by third-party advertisers. Just last week Malwarebytes reported that some ads were dropping ransomware through TPB.
Surprisingly, the warnings are visible to a few users as of yet (the author could access TPB normally) and limited to only desktop versions of browsers. You can surf TPB through your Android smartphone as before.
TorrentFreak notes that The Pirate Bay team is aware of the issues and will probably resolve it sooner than later.
You can bypass the browser warning by disabling security warnings altogether in the settings, but doing so can jeopardize your PC/laptop.
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