Conspiracy or Truth - Russia Stunned After NY Times Makes $1Mln Off Fake Hacking Story

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Cyber intelligence analysts working in the Federal Security Services (FSB) reported on Thursday that the New York Times (NYT) has made an estimated US $1 million off of a “fake article” designed to look like news blaming a Russian hacking group for stealing over a billion passwords to Internet sites and personal computers causing fright among tens-of-millions of users the world over.

According to this report, on August 5th, the NY Times published a story titled “Russian Hackers Amass Over a Billion Internet Passwords” which was, in fact, a “Native Advertising” venture between this once respected newspaper and a relatively new computer company identified as Hold Security founded last year in Wisconsin by Alex Holden.

“Native Advertising”, this report continues, is an online advertising method in which the advertiser attempts to gain attention by providing content in the context of the user's experience. Native ad formats match both the form and function of the user experience in which they are placed.

The advertiser's intent is to make the paid advertising feel less intrusive and thus increase the likelihood users will click on it. The word “native” is used to refer to the formatting of the advertising materials to make them appear more consistent with other media in the recipient's universe.

The New York Times began their “Native Advertising” program this past January, this report says, when Dell became the first advertiser to buy into this highly deceptive program, and which was “a three-month campaign costing six-figures”.

The FSB’s estimate of The New York Times making “at least” US$1 million off of their “Native Advertising” article for Hold Security, this report says, is based upon the Hold Security fee of US $120.00 for anyone seeking to find if their passwords were hacked by these “non-existent” Russian hackers as they are the only ones who, supposedly, know who they are.

In their “fake” news story about these Russian hackers, The New York Times says that Hold Security (the only cyber security firm mentioned in this story) told them:

     “The hacking ring is based in a small city in south central Russia, the region flanked by Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The group includes fewer than a dozen men in their 20s who know one another personally — not just virtually. Their computer servers are thought to be in Russia.”

A more accurate description of this “cyber gang”, however, this report says, can be found in the article by the American technology news and media network The Verge who writes about them stating:

     “The biggest red flag of all, though, is that CyberVor isn't trying to sell the data or use it to steal actual money. They're using it for Twitter spam, the dark web equivalent of boiling the bones for stock. If there were anything else they could do with these passwords, it would be more lucrative and more sustainable than spamming. The fact that the crew is reduced to jacking Twitter accounts suggests the data is more about quantity than quality.
     What you're left with is something of a mess. Clearly CyberVor has been busy, and they seem to have done real damage. Spammers are bad, and cracking small sites is just as bad as cracking big ones. But the most impressive aspects of the hack (the 1.2 billion accounts, the 420,000 sites) all have more to do with how the hack was framed than how it was carried out, and it's easy to see why. No one was going to pay $120 a year just to find out if their Twitter might get hacked.”

Not just The Verge noticed this New York Times “Native Advertising” story for being the “fake” news it was pretending to be either, this report continues, but also The Wall Street Journal and Forbes caught it too, and as we can read:

From Forbes in their article titled “Firm That Exposed Breach Of 'Billion Passwords' Quickly Offered $120 Service To Find Out If You're Affected”:

     “The story provides few details beyond hyperbolic numbers: “ 1.2 billion username and password combinations” and “more than 500 million email addresses” are in the hands of a group of 20-something hackers in Russia, according to the report. No specifics about the state of those passwords: whether they’re in clear-text — the worst case scenario — or in encrypted form. The Internet predictably panicked as the story of yet another massive password breach went viral.”

And from the Wall Street Journal:

     “The firm, founded last year in Milwaukee,  isn’t naming the hackers, any of the victims or how it obtained the data. For a fee, the company said it offers “breach notification services” for website operators that they can use to see if they’re affected and monitor for ongoing threats, according to its website. In an email, Alex Holden, the founder and chief information security officer of Hold Security, said he wanted to “avoid discussing details about the hackers whereabouts and names in case law enforcement has an ongoing investigation.”

Also critical to note about this “fake” New York Times story, FSB intelligence analysts in this report say, was it being written by Nicole Perlroth and David Gellesaug, both of whom were recently found to belong to a highly secretive cabal called the “Gamechanger Salon” which consist of over 1,000  reporters working, in essence, for the Obama regime.

Founded by leftwing activist Billy Wimsatt, the EAG News Service reports, this group is a secretive digital gathering of writers, opinion leaders, activists and political hands who share information, ideas and strategy via a closed Google group. The group’s existence was discovered by Media Trackers through an open records request filed with a University of Wisconsin professor who happened to be a member of the network.

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