Neo-Nazis stole nearly 25,000 email credentials from the WHO, NIH and Gates Foundation and used them to call for a ‘harassment campaign’ while sharing coronavirus conspiracies
- Security experts discovered nearly 25,000 email addresses leaked online
- The credentials belonged to WHO, NIH and the Gates Foundation
- It appears they were stolen by far-right extremists and posted in hate forums
- The event was aimed at spreading coronavirus conspiracy theories
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
Nearly 25,000 email address and passwords belonging to staff at the World Health Organization, Gates Foundation and the National Institute of Health were obtained and posted online by right-wing activists.
The data dump was discovered by SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks the online activity of white-supremacist and jihadist groups, which said the leak was an attempt by ‘the far-right to weaponize the COVID-19 pandemic.’
Although the origin is unclear, experts found the information on 4chan, a message board known for hateful content, as well as Twitter and the far-right extremist channel on the messaging app Telegram, the Washington Post reported.
The information gathered by the hackers and neo-Nazi groups were taken with the sole purpose of sharing coronavirus conspiracy theories, including linking HIV to the virus.
The World Health Organization confirmed to DailyMail.com that email addresses registered in external systems and applications were hacked and made public, but passwords have since been reset for the compromised accounts.
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Nearly 25,000 email address and passwords belonging to staff at the World Health Organization, Gates Foundation and the National Institute of Health were obtained and posted online by right-wing activists
A smaller amount of credentials were found to be associated with the Gates Foundationn, a private philanthropic group whose co-founder, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, last week announced $150 million in new funding to combat the pandemic.
DailyMail.com has reached out to NIH and the Gates Foundation for comment and has yet to receive a response.
The list for the World Health Organization (WHO) totaled to 2,732.
‘Yesterday, on 21 April, WHO email addresses registered in external systems and applications were hacked and made public,’ a WHO spokesperson told DailyMail.com.
‘Out of 6,835 email addresses that were made public, there were 2,712 WHO email addresses, of which 457 are valid and active addresses.
‘The WHO cyber security team ran a verification program to check the exposed email addresses and passwords against authentication services and found that none of the 457 WHO credentials had been compromised.
‘As a precaution, passwords have now been reset for the 457 users whose email addresses were exposed.’
SITE told Business Insider that the information was being used by the extremist groups to spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus.
Rita Katz, SITE’s executive director, said that ‘neo-Nazis and white supremacists’ published the information ‘aggressively’ across various online platforms, using it to call for ‘a harassment campaign while sharing conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic.’
‘The distribution of these alleged email credentials were just another part of a months-long initiative across the far right to weaponize the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘Keep in mind the targets of these lists: NIH, CDC, WHO — these are exactly the types of organizations Neo-Nazis and white supremacists have been targeting amid the crisis.’