Can social media be turned into an alibi for a weapon? The answer would be maybe, or perhaps even an outright “Yes” if you were to take what had just happened into consideration. Basically, hackers from Russia have managed to find a method in making use of Twitter in order to communicate with malware which has already infected target computers. By doing so, the hackers would have successfully snuffed out their tracks at the same time snaking their way into confidential computer systems – and yes, even government computer systems, just in case you were wondering.
How do the hackers do it? Well, they will first upload special images over to Twitter which are used to transmit directions to installed malware on the quiet, which will then allow them to perform various potentially damaging actions such as stealing files as reported by The Financial Times. This particular approach works simply because the “victimized” computer systems does not even realize or register such an intrusion, as it resembles yet another Tweet.
Cybersecurity firm FireEye has labeled this particular trick as “Hammertoss”, citing that such as attack method was “designed so that defenders can neither detect nor characterize its activity”. It looks like a whole lot more things than just computers are getting hacked these days, including self-targeting sniper rifles and a Jeep. Perhaps it really is time to live off the grid from now on.
Filed in . Read more about Hacking and Twitter. Source: fortune