Russians Who Hit DNC Are Using Fake News to Hack U.S.

Some of the Russian hackers blamed for infiltrating the DNC are using bogus news to get inside the networks of the unsuspecting. 

By Jana Winter 

Fake news is more dangerous than you’d think. Deliberately falsified news reports aren’t just being used as propaganda to sway the gullible. Some of the Russian hackers blamed for infiltrating the Democratic National Committee are weaponizing fake news—inserting malware into bogus articles to get inside the networks of the unsuspecting. 

For nearly a decade, various hacker groups accused of working for the Russian government have used fake news in cyberespionage campaigns targeting U.S. government, law enforcement, and military officials—not to mention think tanks, defense contractors, and universities. That’s according to more than a dozen reports and warnings issued by the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and other federal agencies over the last three years and reviewed by The Daily Beast. Private industry security firms, conducting their own research, have reached similar conclusions.

“Cyber-adversaries from Russia, China, and numerous other nations have been using real and fake news as social engineering lures (headlines, attachments, and links) for years, because news/fake news is an effective topic to coerce targets to open the lure and self-victimize,” James Scott, a senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, told The Daily Beast in an email. 

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Source: The Daily Beast