Bitdefender identifies major fake news website farm ramping up social traffic
It is elections season in the US and digital guerilla groups are making their presence felt in hopes of swinging the vote one way or another. With less than two weeks left to manipulate voters’ opinions, cyber-propagandists are deploying an arsenal of websites to spread disinformation.
Bitdefender researchers have identified a website farm spreading propaganda from more than 100 sites. Named after each state in the United States, these websites have been showing up since mid-September and seem to serve one purpose: to disseminate propaganda on social media.
The analytics system on these websites shows that they expose more than 25,000 users to propaganda per month.
Bitdefender advises users to manifest caution when visiting news outlets they are unfamiliar with and to always check the reputation of a website before sharing its contents on social networks.
*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Bitdefender Labs authored by Bogdan Botezatu. Read the original post at: https://labs.bitdefender.com/2018/10/bitdefender-identifies-major-fake-news-website-farm-ramping-up-social-traffic/
