Two more media houses under attack from hackers

Nine months after SEARCHLIGHT Newspaper’s Facebook page was taken over by hackers, at least two other media outlets have come under cyber attacks.

Hot 97.1 FM, a radio station owned by Luke Boyea, and iWitness News, a news site owned by journalist, Kenton Chance, have posted disclaimers informing the public that their sites are being impersonated by an outside entity.

The outside entity/entities have been posting content and attributing the fake information to these media entities by using designs that mimic Hot 97.1 FM and iWitness News’ Facebook and website pages.

On Monday, December 9, 2024, speaking on Hot 97.1 FM’s ‘Am Mayhem’ radio show, Boyea said a fake post attributed to his station about the forced closure of AIA, got his attention.

“The interesting thing always with these fake stories is, what is the end game? What’s the motivation behind them?

“Somebody has gone out of their way to make a story look like it’s coming from iWitness News, and they’ve made another story making it look like it’s come from Hot 97,” Boyea said, while noting that he would not be surprised if the same entity is perpetuating the fraud.

He said that officials attached to the Argyle International Airport (AIA) phoned him after the post was made as they thought it was posted by his station.

“The fake was so good that they thought… ‘why would we put up a story like that about them?’ Only for them to realize it wasn’t from us,” Boyea said, adding that he saw the post around Wednesday or Thursday of last week.

The radio station is questioning, “Why would people do this? What are they trying to achieve?”

Boyea said he has no idea where the fake posts originated, and questioned whether it was being done by competitors, scammers, politicians or internet trolls.

“In today’s world it happens. I don’t think a one-off is damaging, but I think if it was to persist it would be damaging,” he reckoned.

“…obviously, you don’t want to fall out with people over these things, because some people would jump to conclusions, and then you spend time and never successfully convincing them you weren’t responsible. I was shocked at how many people forwarded it…” Boyea said of the post, specifically the one attributed to iWitness News, stressing that people are gullible, so the fake posts are problematic.

In August, 2024, Chance published an article, informing readers that an article attributed to iWitness News about investing $700 to win millions was fake. Recently an article has popped up, again attributed to iWitness News, where persons are asked to click on their age to receive money from the government.

“When you read the article, without checking the URL…where- in the world is government going to give back eight thousand dollars? Boyea questioned.

“…the fact that so many people forwarded it, it would imply that they believed it, and that’s a bit scary. People are gullible to fake news and sometimes they believe what they want to believe.

“Sometimes, it is easy to say ‘forget about it, ignore it’, that’s my natural instinct, but you can’t really do that any more because there are sufficient quantities of people who would believe it and propagate it. It is important to point out it is fake,” Boyea stressed.

Yesterday, December 9, 2024, Chance told SEARCHLIGHT it is not a good feeling to be attacked in this manner as it could result in reputational harm, especially among the gullible, who these types of things are intended to fool.

“Too many people see only a logo, and not a URL. The URL, rather than the logo, is what really tells you what website you are on,” Chance said, while like Boyea, added that he has no idea where the posts originate.

“I think it is a scammer or scammers who are using reputable/popular media outlets to pursue their illegal aims – to defraud unsuspecting internet users.

“I first noticed it in August after I was involved in producing some media content that was widely consumed in a country in a particular region of the world,” Chance told SEARCHLIGHT, while adding that there is a commonly held stereotype that there are many scammers who are, or operate, from that particular country.

“…I have been told that people who have clicked on the link and followed the instructions almost immediately get a call from a UK telephone number urging them to follow through on whatever the website is purporting to offer.

“I don’t think that tech-savvy or discerning internet users would be fooled by those posts. However, I have been somewhat surprised by some of the people who have asked whether these posts were in fact from iWitness News,” Chance said. To my mind, it would be obvious to some of the people who have asked that these posts are clones of the website.”

He added that most people who contacted him sent a screenshot (rather than a link), which might mean that they did not click on the link.

“Not clicking on the link is a good thing. However, if one clicks on the link, one would see that the websites’ URLs are not iWitness News, and one might see that the scam post is the only, or most “significant” post on the websites.

“I would advise people who see these posts on social media to report them as scams or fraud to the social media platform. Further, I would advise people that on the internet, when it comes to investment, if it seems too good to be true, it is most likely not true.”

The journalist said he finds it “ interesting that social media companies are making money through fraudsters paying to advertise scams, while a local newspaper had to struggle so hard to get back control of its pages after scammers took it over some months ago”.