The publisher of Sahara Reporters has accused Nigeria’s Senate President, Bukola Saraki, for cloning his newspaper and stealing his brand identities to create fake versions of his website.
Sahara Reporters, a U.S.-based news website, with special focus on Nigeria, said it believed the Nigerian senate president, who is facing charges of false asset declaration, is masterminding the proliferation of imitation of cloned versions of the
newspaper aimed at circulating lies to the public while disguising as Sahara Reporters.
The publisher, Omoyele Sowore, said his team had so far blocked three fake websites since January 2015. He said the faking websites were blocked from Google, Web4Africa and Twitter. “The only one left is a Facebook account,” Mr.
Sowore said. The outstanding fake account is named Sahara Reporters Rescue.
Checks showed that it had assumed the branding features of the original Sahara Reporters with insignificant modifications. Mr. Sowore said Sahara Reporter Rescue had succeeded in deceiving about 30 thousand people
while circulating contents praising and defendingMr. Saraki.
Its bio is an exact copy-and-paste version of the original Sahara Reporters.
“I know Saraki is directly behind it,” Mr. Sowore said, explaining that he was only concerned the public might mistake the page for the original Sahara Reporters.
Identity theft is an emerging fraud in the Nigerian cyberspace, mainly used by politicians to clone digital identities of critical media house with the aim of using the clone to pass down propagandist information , faking endorsement. It is a form of cyber attack that utilizes deception, rather than the brute force of DDoS attacks.
Sahara Reporters, a U.S.-based news website, with special focus on Nigeria, said it believed the Nigerian senate president, who is facing charges of false asset declaration, is masterminding the proliferation of imitation of cloned versions of the
newspaper aimed at circulating lies to the public while disguising as Sahara Reporters.
The publisher, Omoyele Sowore, said his team had so far blocked three fake websites since January 2015. He said the faking websites were blocked from Google, Web4Africa and Twitter. “The only one left is a Facebook account,” Mr.
Sowore said. The outstanding fake account is named Sahara Reporters Rescue.
Checks showed that it had assumed the branding features of the original Sahara Reporters with insignificant modifications. Mr. Sowore said Sahara Reporter Rescue had succeeded in deceiving about 30 thousand people
while circulating contents praising and defendingMr. Saraki.
Its bio is an exact copy-and-paste version of the original Sahara Reporters.
“I know Saraki is directly behind it,” Mr. Sowore said, explaining that he was only concerned the public might mistake the page for the original Sahara Reporters.
Identity theft is an emerging fraud in the Nigerian cyberspace, mainly used by politicians to clone digital identities of critical media house with the aim of using the clone to pass down propagandist information , faking endorsement. It is a form of cyber attack that utilizes deception, rather than the brute force of DDoS attacks.
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