Discord and Slack Are Becoming Potent Tools for Malware Attacks
The attackers are using chat-app file sharing as a content distribution network for malware that they can link to from elsewhere online
By Steven Melendez
Attackers are finding the file-sharing capabilities in popular group-chat apps such as Discord and Slack a convenient way to distribute malware, warns a new report from Cisco Talos, Cisco’s threat intelligence unit.
The risk isn’t just that hackers can gain access to a particular channel and trick people in it into downloading malware. Once a file containing malicious code is uploaded, attackers can also grab a freely accessible link to that file where it’s hosted on the chat system’s servers. Then, they can send that link to people via phishing emails, misleading texts, or any other method they have of reaching potential victims. In some cases, malware can connect to these sorts of links to download additional malicious code once it’s already running on victims’ machines.
Some malware also uses group-chat apps to share data with and receive commands from the people operating it, according to the report. In particular, Discord has an API (application programming interface) that enables programs to automatically post…
