Hackers have created thousands of fake accounts on popular social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Periscope, via an IoT botnet, using the Linux/Moose malware. Security researchers claim that fake social media accounts are created by hackers to randomly follow people and browse content, in efforts to make the bots seem more “human” and avoid spam filters.
According to security researchers, the Linux/Moose botnet is a “new generation” IoT botnet that operates on embedded systems such as routers, rather than computers. This makes the bot much more difficult to detect. The botnet can function on even limited computational power and specialises in “social media fraud”.
The researchers claim that the fake accounts created by the Linux/Moose malware use random numbers and letters as their usernames and have generic images such as those of “plants, buildings, landscapes or animals” as their profile pictures. The accounts also do not post anything and have no followers. However, they generally follow up to 822 people. The researchers also estimated that the “potential revenue” of a Linux/Moose bot was “$13.05 per month”.
Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/new-iot-botnet-behind-fake-instagram-twitter-youtube-profiles-1592761
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht
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