Users who attempted to use the anime streaming service Crunchyroll earlier today were greeted by an attempt by the site to download malware. Everyone is currently encouraged to stay away from the site until the problem is fixed.
[Update 1 - 1:30PM] The Crunchyroll website is now back up and running, along with the app, so you can finally catch up on the most recent episode of Dragon Ball Super.
Most people became aware of the issue in the last few hours, with the website itself recently tweeting out its own warning:
People who visited the site today prior to it being temporarily taken down were prompted to download and install an updated video viewer. According to one user, doing so would apparently install a bogus svchost.exe file. Anyone who was attacked by the automatic download would do well to run Windows Defender or some other detection program to try and remove any malicious files that made it through.
According to the site’s Customer Support Lead, the malware attacks were the first thing the team woke up to this morning and have been trying to get a handle on the situation so it can be remedied as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, however, the site will continue to offer updates on the situation as it learns more.
While it was the website that was having issues, the app is currently down as well while the issue is being worked on. For now then, you’ll have to put some of your Saturday morning anime viewing on hold.
[Update 2 - 9:00AM 11/5/17] In a Medium post that went up late yesterday, Crunchyroll went into greater detailing explaining the source of the problem and what anyone affected should do to make sure their PCs are safe.
“The attackers redirected incoming visitors intended for the Crunchyroll.com website to a non-Crunchyroll-hosted server with the intent for visitors to download a malicious file, named ‘CrunchyViewer.exe,’” the statement says. It continues,
“This file is malware directly targeting Windows PC web users. We took down the site at 6:00am PST as a precaution and were able to re-secure and restore the correct configuration to our Cloudflare service at 9:00am PST. The Crunchyroll service was fully restored by 9:30am. We’ve identified this as an isolated attack on our Cloudflare layer, and not Crunchyroll itself. As such, our servers were not compromised in any way, and none of our users’ secure information and data was at risk. We take security very seriously, and will pursue this malicious attack on our users to the fullest extent of the law. We will continue to provide updates as we gather more information.”
If you were visited the site during that time yesterday, you can find directions on how to disinfect your computer here.