Courtney Falk, The Pod People Campaign: Driving User Traffic via Social Networks

Users of social networks are having their accounts subverted. Threat actors are gaining unauthorized access to large numbers of accounts and inserting links to suspicious websites. Shared command-and-control infrastructure is used across 70+ different social networks, suggesting a coordinated campaign to drive user traffic. The actors behind this campaign, and the end goal for driving user traffic, remains uncertain. The campaign remains active with changing indicators. The fact that this campaign spans so many different social networks makes determining the scope of the overall problem difficult. Using Goodreads as an example, we detail how the attack is constructed. About the speaker: Dr. Courtney Falk is an information security professional with over fifteen years of experience in the government, academic, and public sectors. He earned his doctorate of philosophy from Purdue University in the interdisciplinary information security program. When Courtney is not building systems as a principal software engineer, he enjoys painting miniature figures and playing war games.