CyberMoscow tells about fake sites
The head of the CyberMoscow project, Grigory Pashchenko, named in an interview with Sputnik radio the clone sites that scammers most often fake. These websites may change names often, but are usually created by the same criminals. A lot of the sites are run out of a country like Macedonia, says Pashchenko.
For instance, a fake Facebook account was set up with the name of Ukraine’s culture minister, part of which was aimed at signing people up for a French course and had ads for a medical treatment. Another phishing page had the picture of Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who Pashchenko noted was not exactly liked by the country’s “nationalistic fringe.”
One of the most prolific fake news factories, according to Pashchenko, was created in the fall of 2016 and was a 48 hour shop. In addition to fake Facebook and YouTube accounts, the hackers sold an updated fake Google Chrome browser with a plug-in for a popular Russian news site, Yandex, that lead to the fake site. The new browser came in two versions: for Russia and Ukraine, and sold for $3,000. When victims downloaded the fake browser, it would download the fake Google Chrome plug-in and the fake news sites.
There is some misinformation trickled out from Russia, but it is usually targeted, according to Pashchenko. For example, one fake news site claimed that US intelligence hacked Kiev’s power grid. And a fake news story about Hillary Clinton being exposed as a pedophile spread through the fake news channels even after she had secured the Democratic nomination, Pashchenko said. In this case, the Ukrainian president was already denying the allegations.
Russian hack
Pashchenko explained that the majority of fake sites were created by Russian hacking groups.
The connections are the same fake Russian social media accounts that were used to mount a series of pro-Trump political campaigns during the presidential election. They used online banking to fakely gain the reputation of having more than $100,000 in each of the hacked bank accounts. In addition, fake Facebook and Twitter profiles were used to spread the fake news to the target audience.
But more sophisticated fake sites were used by Russian hackers to create a fake message purportedly from a retired US Air Force officer. It asked for the users’ help in posting information to different anti-Islamic pages.
The fake message included a link to a website with a photo of retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, the commander of the US European Command. This is a photograph used by many social media accounts to show Breedlove speaking at a NATO conference or while receiving an award.
Pashchenko says the fake news was intended to undermine the reputation of US service members.
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Many of the fake sites with a link to these social media accounts also promoted a fake news report that a Muslim American, Iqbal Thinni, was the new prime minister of Libya.
According to Pashchenko, the hackers’ goal was to create a rift between a NATO ally and a US ally, especially since the United States and several European countries were involved in a coalition to fight ISIS in the country at the time.
Thinni, however, released a statement in response to the report, saying it was fake.
Pashchenko said, in many cases, the hackers also forged emails in an attempt to target NATO military bases in Europe, with the goal of defacing them.
At the time, NATO deployed aircraft carriers to the Baltic states, Poland and the United Kingdom in response to Russian election meddling in the US. And on Friday, Britain announced it had expelled 23 Russian diplomats over the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.
Fake accounts
Some of the social media profiles created by Russian hackers contain fake information. For example, Pashchenko noted that a fake Twitter account was used to convince a donor to leave a $75,000 donation in a US military honor fund.
However, the military service only allowed donations to be left in one of three areas: a fund for veterans, a special fund for military families or the general fund.