Abandoned Popcorn Time updater left up to 350,000 Macs vulnerable

An abandoned Popcorn Time version left a background updater running on some Macs, even when people had stopped using the app.

The version, called Time4Popcorn, was an unofficial fork that continued circulating under the Popcorn Time name after the original project shut down.

Researchers estimate 250,000 to 350,000 Macs were affected, though users may not know which version they installed.

The updater trusted downloaded code and could run it with full system access, while contacting update addresses that had been abandoned.

That created a way for whoever took over an address to install harmful software, but researchers say they found no evidence criminals had done so.

With the developers gone, Eye Research used the updater to disable its background service on more than a million Macs and Windows PCs, then transferred addresses to the Shadowserver Foundation.

The repair did not fix other vulnerabilities, so researchers advise anyone still running Time4Popcorn to uninstall it.