REPORT: Russian Hackers Are Posting Comments On Britney Spears’ Instagram Account To Share Strategy

Vox reports:

In order to hack foreign governments, military officials, and embassies, Russian hackers are now using Britney Spears in their operations by posting cryptic comments on her Instagram photos.

Hackers at Turla, a group believed to be linked to Moscow, are using Instagram comments on Britney Spears’s photos to control their hacking operation, said researchers at Slovakian security firm ESET in a report on Tuesday.

A comment on Britney Spears’s photo is a clever strategy for announcing the location of a new command and control server after the previous one gets shut down. When decoded, it’s actually the central server’s internet address.

Compromised machines are programmed to periodically scan for these specially-targeted comments on the Spears Instagram page so they’re able to continue communicating with the hackers even after the initial command and control server gets shut down.