Yesterday, links to a fake “hack” of the WHO, Gates Foundation, and CDC were posted to 4ch and anon conspiracy-focused Twitter accounts.

As many have pointed out, the hoax hack was actually a compilation of old leaked email and password databases. Not a new or recent breach.

To confirm, I reached out to the Gates Foundation and the WHO. The Gates Foundation said they did not suffer any new breaches. The WHO confirmed that too, saying some of the published emails were genuine but nobody was able to use the credentials to log in.

Statements below:

This franken-database was posted on Pastebin, where it was since removed. It also got a few hundred RTs on Twitter before getting pulled down.

A Twitter spokesperson told me they were being aggressive w/ policy enforcement & were taking action on any versions of the URLs shared

The incident hasn’t spread too widely yet among the mainstream public. Activity mostly comes from FB groups, TG channels, and social accounts targeting known conspiracies, which have been focusing on Gates for some time now. (More here: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/conspiracy-theorists-are-using-a-bill-gates-reddit-ama-to)

The most-referenced tweet about this fake hack is this one, which has been screenshot and plastered across the social web.

Although most people are probably unaware of this entire… situation, the fake hack will strongly bolster existing false conspiracy narratives.

The most relevant question about this fake hack, though, is whodunit? It could equally be the work of a bored teen or a malicious actor.

If you have suspicions about the source, my DMs are open and my email is [email protected]. Get in touch!

God, what a time.