Internet Memes Can Now Be Used As A Hacking Ploy
An internet meme posted on Twitter was discovered as being used by hackers to send hidden commands to a piece of malware in order to extract information from random devices. The “What if I told you” meme circulated around the social network site, and was used as a tool to conceal malicious methods of illegally acquiring information from a device. Steganography, or the method used to conceal a malicious payload inside the image or a video to evade security solutions, has been used by hackers and cybercriminals alike in multiple occasions, and just recently, on Twitter.
The said corrupted meme image contained an embedded command, and once downloaded, it will execute small commands such as “print” which will consequently take a screenshot illegally obtaining data of the infected device and afterwards, will be sent to the attacker by uploading to a specific URL address. This is highly alarming, as meme images are deemed harmless, thus anybody who is on the social media site and found the image interesting enough to save it, could potentially be harmed. As a solution, Twitter has disabled the hacker’s account from its platform, but there was still no clear method on how it was spread.
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