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Ukraine Busts Alleged Russian Bot Farm Using Thousands of SIM Cards (vice.com) 28

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Ukraine's Security Service said it has shut down a troll farm in the city of Lviv. "The SSU cyber specialists uncovered and dismantled two bot farms in Lviv with a total capacity of 18,000 fake accounts," an SSU press release said. "According to preliminary information, organizers from Russia supervised the administrators of the bot farms." According to the press release, three people in two different residences were involved. Two gave over their apartments to the operation while a third took care of maintaining the accounts and equipment. "The bot farms worked mostly in social networks: distributed fakes to spread panic," the press release said. "The bots also published false information about bomb threats at various facilities."

The SSU said it seized two sets of GSM gateways, 3,000 SIM cards, laptops, and accounting records. GSM gateways are equipment that allows people to use SIM cards to connect to networks outside the default network they're meant to be connected to. They're popular tools for hackers and other cyber criminals, who can use them to manage several phone numbers, and to connect to Voice Over IP, or VoIP networks. The photos of the bust show dozens of GSM gateways stuffed with blurred SIM cards.

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Ukraine Busts Alleged Russian Bot Farm Using Thousands of SIM Cards

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  • Somebody STILL doesn't get it.

  • Similar troll farms are operating in the West as well...

    antivaxers, social unrest, brexit, trump, elections in various countries...

    western democracies have real problem...

    • by Jzanu ( 668651 )
      I'm waiting for the day the intelligence agencies show how much of the anti-vaccine sentiment was engineered by pro-Russian and anti-US forces trying to disrupt the US ability to mobilize its military forces. At this point Russia is anchored by its runaway infections, and desires to impose that condition on everyone else.
  • by sinkskinkshrieks ( 6952954 ) on Thursday February 10, 2022 @01:24AM (#62254877)

    It seems unnecessarily expensive and complicated to use actual SIMs. VPNs exist. Tor exists. Free emails that don't require phone verification exist (Yandex is just one).

    Plus, authorities using a stingray or carriers using mapping tools can easily see local high densities of active SIMs where there isn't physical space for a crowd of 3k.

    Does anyone know what purpose having a bazillion SIMs offers other than being able to VOIP war dial phone spam?

  • Oh, social media networks? Those are honeypots. Nothing of value was attacked, then, you say?

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