Monday, May 5, 2025
HomeComputer SecurityHackers Using Weaponized Memes to Communicate with Malware for Malicious Operations

Hackers Using Weaponized Memes to Communicate with Malware for Malicious Operations

Published on

SIEM as a Service

Follow Us on Google News

Researchers recently observed that cyber criminals using a weaponized memes in order to communicate with malware for various malicious operations.

Memes are nowadays using for fast communication methods to spreading news which is now abused by cyber criminals to reach victims in a very effective way.

Attackers using Steganography to embed the malicious payload inside of the image to bypass the security solutions to compromise vicitms.

- Advertisement - Google News

Similarly last year, attackers using 2 memes that was posted in twitter that contain embedded link which point to the command & control server where malware dropped into victims system.

Currently observed campaign being delivered via legitimate service, a popular social media service where attackers posted a meme that looks like very benign.

Malware Infection Process

Initially, once users infected by malware which download malicious memes from Twitter account to the victim’s machine

Further analysis reveals that the memes contain a “/print” command hidden inside that will be extracted and helps malware to take a screenshot of the infected victim’s machine.

The later moment it communicates with Command & control server from pastebin and send the collected screenshots of the victim’s machine. 

Also, researcher observed that Pastebin URL points to an internal or private IP address, which is possibly a temporary placeholder used by the attackers.

Attackers parse the malicious memes from the twitter account where the file posted using a specific pattern.

  “<img src=\”(.*?):thumb\” width=\”.*?\” height=\”.*?\”/>”

Image : TrendMicro

According to Trend Micro, There where 2 memes were posted which contains a command that helps malware to perform  various malicious operation such as capture screenshots, collect system information, among others.

Following commands used by malware to retrieve the information from the infected machine.

Commands
Description
/printScreen capture
/processosRetrieve list of running processes
/clipCapture clipboard content
/usernameRetrieve username from infected machine
/docsRetrieve filenames from a predefined path such as (desktop, %AppData% etc.)

Indicators of Compromise

 Hashes (SHA-256)

  • 003673cf045faf0141b0bd00eff13542a3a62125937ac27b80c9ffd27bb5c722
  • 3579d609cf4d0c8b469682eb7ff6c65ec634942fa56d47b666db7aa99a2ee3ef
  • 88b06e005ecfab28cfdbcab98381821d7cc82bb140894b7fdc5445a125ce1a8c
  • 8cdb574ba6fcaea32717c36b47fec0309fcd5c6d7b0f9a58fc546b74fc42cacd

You can follow us on LinkedinTwitterFacebook for daily Cybersecurity updates also you can take the Best Cybersecurity courses online to keep your self-updated.

Powerful Mobile Malware Rotexy Launched over 70,000 Attacks with Banking Trojan & Ransomware Modules

$60 Million Worth Cryptocurrencies Stolen Hackers From Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange

Balaji
Balaji
BALAJI is an Ex-Security Researcher (Threat Research Labs) at Comodo Cybersecurity. Editor-in-Chief & Co-Founder - Cyber Security News & GBHackers On Security.

Latest articles

Claude AI Abused in Influence-as-a-Service Operations and Campaigns

Claude AI, developed by Anthropic, has been exploited by malicious actors in a range...

Threat Actors Attacking U.S. Citizens Via Social Engineering Attack

As Tax Day on April 15 approaches, a alarming cybersecurity threat has emerged targeting...

TerraStealer Strikes: Browser Credential & Sensitive‑Data Heists on the Rise

Insikt Group has uncovered two new malware families, TerraStealerV2 and TerraLogger, attributed to the...

MintsLoader Malware Uses Sandbox and Virtual Machine Evasion Techniques

MintsLoader, a malicious loader first observed in 2024, has emerged as a formidable tool...

Resilience at Scale

Why Application Security is Non-Negotiable

The resilience of your digital infrastructure directly impacts your ability to scale. And yet, application security remains a critical weak link for most organizations.

Application Security is no longer just a defensive play—it’s the cornerstone of cyber resilience and sustainable growth. In this webinar, Karthik Krishnamoorthy (CTO of Indusface) and Phani Deepak Akella (VP of Marketing – Indusface), will share how AI-powered application security can help organizations build resilience by

Discussion points


Protecting at internet scale using AI and behavioral-based DDoS & bot mitigation.
Autonomously discovering external assets and remediating vulnerabilities within 72 hours, enabling secure, confident scaling.
Ensuring 100% application availability through platforms architected for failure resilience.
Eliminating silos with real-time correlation between attack surface and active threats for rapid, accurate mitigation

More like this

Claude AI Abused in Influence-as-a-Service Operations and Campaigns

Claude AI, developed by Anthropic, has been exploited by malicious actors in a range...

Threat Actors Attacking U.S. Citizens Via Social Engineering Attack

As Tax Day on April 15 approaches, a alarming cybersecurity threat has emerged targeting...

TerraStealer Strikes: Browser Credential & Sensitive‑Data Heists on the Rise

Insikt Group has uncovered two new malware families, TerraStealerV2 and TerraLogger, attributed to the...