Spammers Exploit Spotify Playlists and Podcasts to Promote Pirated Content
Spotify's playlists and podcast pages are being exploited by spammers who create content with pirated material keywords to manipulate search engine results and promote illegal download sites.
Spotify search results being manipulated
The issue stems from Spotify's open.spotify.com domain being highly indexable by search engines. Spammers create playlists and podcasts with titles containing keywords for pirated content like games, ebooks, and movies. These pages then appear in Google search results when users look for specific content.
"Cybercriminals exploit Spotify for malware distribution," explains Karol Paciorek, a cybersecurity enthusiast. "Spotify has a strong reputation and its pages are easily indexed by search engines, making it an effective platform to promote malicious links."
While Spotify removes reported content quickly, new spam continuously appears. Many spam podcasts are distributed through Firstory Hosting, a third-party platform launched in 2019. Firstory acknowledges this as an "ongoing challenge" and claims to implement filtering measures for keywords like 'epub,' 'PDF,' and 'download.'
Despite these efforts and Spotify's platform rules prohibiting such practices, the problem persists. A simple search for 'epub' on Spotify's podcast page reveals hundreds of spam results, indicating that both Spotify's music and podcast interfaces remain vulnerable to manipulation.
Key Issues:
- Spammers create playlists/podcasts with pirated content keywords
- Google indexes these pages, making them appear in search results
- Third-party hosting services struggle to prevent spam distribution
- Spotify's content removal efforts can't keep pace with new spam
- Both music and podcast sections are affected
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