In April 2024, a video with the Deutsche Welle logo circulated on Telegram, reporting the arrest of a group of Ukrainian hackers stealing data from users of open Wi-Fi networks. We have verified the authenticity of this video.
On April 22, posts appeared on Telegram with the following content: “Berlin police warn about the dangers of using open Wi-Fi networks in public places due to Ukrainian scammers.” The posts were accompanied by a video with the logo of the German public media company Deutsche Welle, which reported the arrest of 80 Ukrainian hackers from the group 31337 nice in Berlin. The scammers allegedly created public Wi-Fi networks through which they gained access to users’ phones and their personal data, including crypto wallets. This video was published by such Telegram channels as “Sheikh Tamir"(291,000 as of the day this analysis was written), Rogandar News (122,000), "Antichips"(65,000), etc. The news was also shared by some Russian Media and users "VKontakte"
The format and manner of presenting information in the video about Ukrainian hackers is reminiscent of DW videos that are published on its official pages in Facebook, X, Instagram And YouTube. Typically, the German broadcaster uploads videos to multiple platforms simultaneously, as can be seen in the story published on May 1, 2024. Facebook, X And Instagram, as well as on website publications However, Verified did not find a story about the arrest of Ukrainian hackers on any platform where DW is present. Moreover, not a single German or other major European media wrote about this.
If you compare the Telegram video with the DW news clips, you will notice several inconsistencies. Firstly, the fake video uses a different font, although very similar to the branded one.
Second, the fake video contains formatting and spelling errors, such as double space, odd line alignment, and lowercase spelling of the word Wi-Fi (which is the term used in real DW publications). is written with capital letters).
Thirdly, the fake video uses a so-called post-roll (the final screensaver with the logo of the content author), which indicates the year 2023, although the video is presented in publications as fresh, that is, it was supposed to be released in April 2024.
“Verified” also could not find a single mention of the hacker group 31337 nice on the Internet. Symbols 31337 are often found in the subculture of hackers and gamers. Since the 1980s, in slang, which was called leetspeak, it was common practice to replace letters with similar-looking numbers and symbols to bypass filters to block prohibited words (for example, hacker was written as h4x0r). Yes, 31337 read as eleet (distorted elite - “elite”), and hackers and programmers often use this word in the username. For example, in 2017, a hacker group with a similar name, 31337, launched the #LeakTheAnalyst campaign and hacked computer of an employee of the American company Mandiant, and five years later published threats of new hacks.
Fact checkers from the Ukrainian project “Gvara Media» checked website Berlin Police, where police reports on incidents, including cyber fraud, are published daily. The April archive contains no mention of the exposure of Ukrainian hackers or the theft of users' personal data via Wi-Fi networks. Gvara Media also contacted DW for comment, and a representative of the media company responded that the video had nothing to do with the publication.
Judging by data from the TGStat service, the Telegram channel was the first to publish the fake video “Sheikh Tamir» April 22 at 10:04 Moscow time. This is not the first time that a video, the author of which used the design of a reputable foreign media outlet when talking about a fictitious news story, appears in the pro-Kremlin Telegram segment. Previously, “Verified” had already published analyzes of fake videos allegedly released Al Jazeera, euronews, BBC, Reuters, Fox News and, as in this case, Deutsche Welle. Such videos are usually a series of pictures and clips taken from open sources, against which text captions convey the fake news.
Thus, the video circulating on Telegram about the arrest of Ukrainian hackers in Berlin is a fake. There is no mention of this event or information about the hacker group 31337 nice in any reputable foreign media. Neither Deutsche Welle nor the German police, to whom the authors of the video refer, released relevant materials.
Cover photo: Sora Shimazaki / Pexels
Read on topic:
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please let us know by highlighting the error text and clicking Ctrl+Enter.
