When setting up a new PC, installing a utility like 7-zip, PeaZip, or WinRAR is something we tend to do almost without thinking. But it's easy to fall into the trap of downloading malicious executables from unofficial sources, which is what happened for about 10 days with the 7-zip.com website.
To wit, the official website for the 7-Zip project is 7-zip.org. However, as usual, free projects attract copycat websites — whose usual intent is just to get placed high enough in web searches to get click-throughs and earn some change in ad revenue. This seemed to be the case for 7-zip.com, until the timeframe of Jan. 12 - 22 — when the download links started redirecting users to a malware-laden executable.
