Russian Malware Communicates Using Britney Spears's Instagram Account (welivesecurity.com) 54
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: A key weakness in malicious software is the "Command and Control" (C&C) system -- a central server that the malware-infected systems contact to receive updates and instructions, and to send stolen data. Anti-malware researchers like to reverse engineer malicious code, discover the C&C server's address, and then shut it down. Turla is an "advanced persistent threat" hacking group based in Russia with a long history of attacking states in ways that advance Russian state interests. A new analysis by Eset shows that Turla is solving its C&C problems by using Britney Spears' Instagram account as a cut-out for its C&C servers. Turla moves the C&C server around, then hides the current address of the server in encrypted comments left on Britney Spears's image posts. The compromised systems check in with Spears' Instagram whenever they need to know where the C&C server is currently residing.
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I was once eaten by a GRU. I don't think it was carrying any milk though.
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It must have been dark. When it is pitch dark, you are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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And milk makes YOU spoil early!
No, that's China and their melamine milk.
Good use for it (Score:2)
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You forgot the Then and the Else.
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Well, okay, only the Else.
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No, wait, only the Then. Conditionals are hard, man...
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C'mon, I was thirsty for a bad joke, and since nobody provided, I had to invent my own :)
I demand... (Score:3, Funny)
...that the links of Britney Spears with the Russian counterintelligence and propaganda units are investigated.
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Britney Spears is the reason Hillary lost!
Whoa (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Whoa (Score:5, Funny)
Woah! (Score:4, Funny)
The Russians compromise yet another Great American! WHEN WILL IT ALL END?
Re: Woah! (Score:1)
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Nobody.
Simple logic. Controlling something, even the most insignificant, simplest of things, requires resources. Now ponder who would waste, well, anything on THAT.
Britney Spears... (Score:3)
Evil Mastermind.
Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)
Leave Britney Alone! [youtube.com]
Sorry.
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How dare YOU, sir. The humanity.
I'm not a girl... (Score:2)
Awesome :D (Score:1)
That's actually a really good idea. Bonus if they use some kind of steganographic algorithm (perhaps for any word with more than 2 letters, an even number of vowels = 0, odd = 1), making it impossible to moderate or screen comments. More celebrities social network feeds should be used in this way!
01010101 = You and I should play some musical games baby :D
I should patent this.
Apostrophe catastrophe (Score:2, Funny)
Sigh... Britney Spears' Instagram account, not Britney Spears's Instagram account. You got it right in the summary at least.
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I think it's some has-been stripper. Not sure, though.
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they are known for having written the core of their protection suite in hand-coded assembler for speed-up.
That was back then. I loved using NOD32 back in the version 2.x days, it was hands down the fastest anti-virus around, so light it seemed my computer wasn't running an anti-virus at all. Then in later versions they stopped doing that. Version 3.x was as bloated and slow as the other anti-virus in the market. I kept using v2 until it stopped being supported, and then I moved on.
Link goes to a different fucking story (Score:2)
Link goes to a different story.
Seems like either someone got trolled or the editors suck and no one else bothered to click on the link.
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ah shit, nm, not my best day so far, I'm wrong.