Breaking Bad has cultivated America. The hit show ends it 6 season run this Sunday. Because of this Hackers have used this as a way to attack viewers through Twitter. Spammers have been adding users to a Breaking Bad themed list on twitter. After users were added to the list they would see tweets saying "Leaked Breaking Bad" or "New Episode" and a Pastebin.com link. Satnam Narang, a security response manager at Symantic said "In order to open the large file, users are instructed to download the latest version of 7-Zip,"."The link directs users through an affiliate program, which is how scammers make money. The affiliate program directs users to an installer that comes bundled with other applications. Users can choose not to install these applications" he said. Apparently these list gain quite a lot of traction but were easily to remove yourself from.
I'm very surprised that this actually worked on people. But that's what people do. Sometimes they just don't think and click. I'm more surprised that this worked over a social media outlet. Most hacks over Facebook or Twitter are very easy to spot out; the links are rather sketchy looking. Statistics show that 30% of twitter are 18-30 year olds, so a lot of them grew up with Twitter and Facebook and you would think they would be able to spot this obvious hack.
Just today I heard a girl talking about how her Twitter got hacked and was sending strange message to people. The messages said "Recommended: (inset strange link)." The funniest part was I received a message just like that from somebody else a few hours after that.
I'm surprised that these attacks still exist. Because they are so obvious I figure that Hackers wouldn't move on to something less out in the open. But maybe the out in the open attack is the best kind. Kind of like hiding in plain sight.
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