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The baseless conspiracy theory took off after an anonymous user posed a bizarre question in an internet chatroom: What if retail giant Wayfair is using pricey storage cabinets to traffic children? Self-proclaimed internet sleuths quickly responded by matching up the names of Wayfair products to those of missing children, producing social media posts that have since overrun Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The result: A national human trafficking hotline suddenly began taking a number of calls about the imagined Wayfair scheme, stretching its resources. A woman said she posted a video of herself on Facebook to counter false claims that she was missing. One mother’s pleas to Facebook and YouTube to remove a video of her young daughter that was being used to suggest she was a Wayfair victim went unanswered for days.  Wayfair was forced to respond to the accusations in a recent statement: “There is, of course, no truth to these claims.”  Yet internet users continue to weave a complex web around Wayfair’s furniture and decor, spun from falsehoods and conjecture. Social media influencers, fringe online communities and even political candidates have also now seized on the conspiracy theory as evidence of an even grander one, known as QAnon, that centers on the baseless belief that President Donald Trump is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the “deep state” and a child sex trafficking ring. “Conspiracy theorists always managed to spread their theories in the past, but the internet has made this much easier,” said Kathryn Olmsted, a history professor who studies conspiracy theories at University of California, Davis. “If you believe in one, you believe in another. You start collecting them.”  Mentions of Wayfair and “trafficking” have exploded on Facebook and Instagram over the past week. And on TikTok, the hashtags #Wayfairconspiracy and #WayfairGate together amassed nearly 4.5 million views even as several strands of the conspiracy theory have been debunked. Some social media posts pointed to the high cost of the storage cabinets — which sell for about $13,000 each — as suspect. Wayfair, however, said the steel structures were priced correctly for industrial use. A pillow listed for $9,999 also fueled suspicion, but was an error, the company said. ‘Why am I mad? Because I’m not missing’Other posts shared thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter connected the name of one of Wayfair’s cabinets, Samiyah, to an outdated missing person report for an Ohio girl named Samiyah Mumin, claiming it was proof that the company is trafficking young girls. A woman who identified herself as Mumin filmed a Facebook video to set the record straight. “Why am I mad? Because I’m not missing,” she said. Mumin did not respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment. The Ohio Attorney General’s Office confirmed Mumin was found after being reported missing for a four-day period in May 2019 and has not been reported missing since.  A Maryland boy who briefly went missing in April also was identified by internet conspiracy theorists as a possible Wayfair victim because his last name matched the name of a pillow. He was found in less than 24 hours, with no signs that he had been trafficked or kidnapped, according to the sheriff’s office in St. Mary’s County. The burst of attention for the Wayfair claims also renewed interest in the QAnon conspiracy theory. In recent days, three conservative congressional candidates in Florida, Georgia and California who have expressed support for QAnon have also pushed unfounded allegations about Wayfair on Twitter. Thousands of tweets promoted the QAnon hashtag with claims that Wayfair is trafficking. A network of popular QAnon Facebook groups shared a video with a mashup of claims about human trafficking, including the Wayfair conspiracy theory.  The term QAnon skyrocketed on Instagram and Facebook, receiving more interactions last week than any other week over the last year, according to data from CrowdTangle, which tracks more than 4 million public pages, profiles and accounts. Surge in hotline callsThe attention created by the Wayfair conspiracy theory has, in some cases, been damaging for the very people social media users say they’re trying to help.  An increase in calls prompted by the conspiracy theory is straining the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which provides emergency help to victims. The line was already seeing a surge in requests for emergency shelter assistance because of the coronavirus, said Robert Beiser, of Polaris, a nonprofit organization that runs the hotline. “There’s a very real possibility that if there’s a conspiracy theory that comes out on the internet and it generates thousands of signals into our hotline, that could get in the way for us providing timely service to survivors who are in crisis,” Beiser said.  YouTube video Meanwhile, a YouTube video of a young London girl sitting on a couch to audition for a Wayfair commercial was used by some pro-Trump YouTube accounts to claim that she was a victim in the alleged trafficking scheme.  The video was taken from the girl’s mother’s YouTube account and spread across the internet, said Carleen McCarthy, a senior agent for the talent agency Alphabet Agency, which represents the girl. The agency and the girl’s mother repeatedly flagged the videos to YouTube and Facebook, as they continued to rake in thousands of views online. YouTube removed the video after the AP inquired about it, although new versions remain on the site. Facebook said in a statement that it’s reduced circulation of false claims around the Wayfair conspiracy theory.  One YouTube influencer — who posted a video, viewed 155,000 times, that accused Wayfair of trafficking children through their products — walked back the comments a few days later. “I didn’t really have all the facts for that video, I just kind of made it on impulse because I was so scared,” said Jeremiah Willis in a later video. “I personally have no knowledge, no evidence, nothing.” 
 
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The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating Wednesday’s major Twitter hack, in which scammers tapped into high-profile accounts to scam users out of over $100,000 in Bitcoin, the agency confirmed Thursday.  “The FBI is investigating the incident involving several Twitter accounts belonging to high profile individuals that occurred on July 15, 2020. At this time, the accounts appear to have been compromised in order to perpetuate cryptocurrency fraud,” said the FBI’s San Francisco division in a statement. “We advise the public not to fall victim to this scam by sending cryptocurrency or money in relation to this incident.”New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Thursday that the state’s Department of Financial Services would also conduct a “full investigation into this massive hack.” On Wednesday, hackers targeted accounts from celebrities and politicians, including Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden, Kim Kardashian and Barack Obama, with tweets that promised to send users back double the money they paid to an anonymous Bitcoin address. The hackers received over $100,000 in cryptocurrency off the brazen attack, according to Bitcoin’s public blockchain records.  Twitter called the breach a “coordinated social engineering attack” in which scammers “successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.”Our investigation is still ongoing but here’s what we know so far:
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020One notable exception to the hack was U.S. President Donald Trump, whose verified personal and presidential accounts were unaffected Wednesday, which White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany confirmed in a press briefing Thursday. She said Trump would stay on Twitter despite the attack.”The president will remain on @Twitter” per @PressSec, asked about yesterday’s Twitter hack targeting verified accounts
“His account was secure & not jeopardized” she says, adding White House has been in touch w/Twitter “to keep Twitter secure, the president’s twitter feed”
— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) July 16, 2020In a thread, Twitter said it had taken “significant steps to limit access to internal systems and tools” as its own investigation continues.Internally, we’ve taken significant steps to limit access to internal systems and tools while our investigation is ongoing. More updates to come as our investigation continues.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020Twitter locked down all verified accounts after the news broke, preventing them from tweeting and resetting passwords. The company also removed the fake tweets from compromised accounts and said it would “restore access to the original account owner only when we are certain we can do so securely.”  Twitter’s blue check mark system, which indicates verified accounts, is supposed to show that a user is authentic.   
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U.S., British and Canadian officials accused the Kremlin Thursday of being behind a massive and ongoing cyber hack aimed at stealing from Western pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions doing research into coronavirus vaccines and treatment therapies.
 
In a joint statement, the governments of all three countries said the hacking operation started in February and has been unrelenting since.
 
Britain’s National Cybersecurity Center, part of the country’s eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, issued the statement, which was coordinated with counterparts in the U.S. and Canada. Officials identified the Russian hacking group APT29, also nicknamed Cozy Bear, as being behind the hacks.
 
“APT29 has a long history of targeting governmental, diplomatic, think tank, health care and energy organizations for intelligence gain, so we encourage everyone to take this threat seriously and apply the mitigations issued in the advisory,” Anne Neuberger, cybersecurity director at the U.S.’s National Security Agency, said in a statement.
 
Paul Chichester, the National Cybersecurity Center’s director of operations, said, “We condemn these despicable attacks against those doing vital work to combat the coronavirus pandemic.”  
 
Chichester said the Cozy Bear group “almost certainly operates as part of Russian intelligence services.”  
 
All three Western allies are working to try to protect coronavirus-related research and are issuing new cybersecurity advice to pharmaceutical firms, universities and other research institutes.
 
“We would urge organizations to familiarize themselves with the advice we have published to help defend their networks,” Chichester added.
 
The three Western allies first warned in May that state-backed cyber spies were trying to steal coronavirus data, but they did not at that time identify who was behind the assault. Officials briefed reporters off the record that China, Russia and Iran were involved.
 
Cozy Bear, along with a cyber hacking group called Fancy Bear, have been accused by U.S. officials and private cybersecurity companies of hacking the U.S. Democratic Party in 2016 in the run-up to the presidential election.
 
The accusation about the Kremlin-sponsored cyberattacks came just minutes after Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told lawmakers in the House of Commons that Russia had sought to meddle in last year’s British general election.  
 
Raab said it was “almost certain” that Russia attempted to influence the outcome of the election, after documents detailing Anglo-American free trade talks were “illicitly acquired.”FILE – Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab leaves the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in central London, July 1, 2020.The trade documents were placed online and were noticed by Britain’s main opposition Labor Party and used in the election campaign to suggest the Conservatives would sign a post-Brexit trade deal with the U.S. that would be more favorable for U.S. businesses.
 
“On the basis of extensive analysis, the government has concluded that it is almost certain that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 general election through the online amplification of illicitly acquired and leaked government documents,” Raab said.
 
He added, “Sensitive government documents relating to the U.K.-U.S. free trade agreement were illicitly acquired before the 2019 general election and disseminated online via the social media platform Reddit. When these gained no traction, further attempts were made to promote the illicitly acquired material online in the run-up to the general election.”
 
Raab said the British government “reserves the right to respond with appropriate measures in the future” — a sign that London is considering imposing additional sanctions on Russia, adding to those already introduced for Russia’s annexation in 2014 of Ukraine’s Crimea region and for a nerve agent attack in England targeting a Russian defector.
 
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Raab’s allegations about election meddling were vague.  
 
“The statement is so foggy and contradictory that it’s practically impossible to understand,” she told reporters in Moscow.FILE – Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova speaks to the media in Moscow, March 29, 2018.Russian officials deny any involvement by the Russian state in coronavirus cyber hacking, saying Moscow’s own vaccine plans are far advanced and claiming Russia could be the first country to roll out mass immunization.
 
Raab’s accusations Thursday come ahead of the scheduled publication next week of a House of Commons report on alleged Russian interference in the general workings of British democracy. That report was completed in May 2018 but was delayed by the government, despite pressure from opposition parties that it be released ahead of last year’s general election, in which Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party won in a landslide victory.
 
U.S. authorities recently accused Chinese spies of trying to steal vaccine information. FBI Director Chris Wray last week said, “At this very moment, China is working to compromise American health care organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions conducting essential COVID-19 research.”
 
British officials say that the ongoing and highly targeted hacking operation by Cozy Bear has focused on facilities known to be working on coronavirus vaccines and treatments to overcome COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. British-based researchers at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London are believed to be among those targeted.
 
Britain’s spy chiefs say the Russian hackers have been using several techniques to try to gain access to information, including spear-phishing and custom malware.
 
An official Downing Street spokesman said, “The attacks which are taking place against scientists and others doing vital work to combat coronavirus are despicable. Working with our allies, we will call out those who seek to do us harm in cyberspace and hold them to account.”
 
Russian officials announced Thursday that Phase 2 trials of a Russian-made coronavirus vaccine will end on Aug. 3, to be followed immediately by a third phase.
 
“The third phase will not only take place in Russia, but also in a number of other countries,” Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, told reporters during an online press conference.  
 
“We expect to receive regulatory approval to start using the Russian vaccine in August-September,” he added.  
The vaccine was developed by Moscow’s Gamalei Institute of Epidemiology, working with the country’s Ministry of Defense.VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
 
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The European Union’s top court ruled Thursday that an agreement that allows thousands of companies — from tech giants to small financial firms — to transfer data to the United States is invalid because the American government can snoop on people’s data.
The ruling to invalidate Privacy Shield will complicate business for some 5,000 companies, and it could require regulators to vet any new data transfers to make sure Europeans’ personal information remains protected according to the EU’s stringent standards.
It will no longer simply be assumed that tech companies like Facebook will adequately protect the privacy of its European users’ data when it sends it to the U.S. Rather, the EU and U.S. will likely have to find a new agreement that guarantees that Europeans’ data is afforded the same privacy protection in the U.S. as it is in the EU.
Privacy activists hailed the court ruling as a major victory, while business groups worried about the potential to disrupt commerce, depending on how the ruling is implemented. Companies like Facebook routinely move such data among their servers around the world and the practice underpins billions of dollars in business.  
“It is clear that the U.S. will have to seriously change their surveillance laws, if U.S. companies want to continue to play a major role on the EU market,” said Max Schrems, an Austrian activist whose complaints about the handling of his Facebook data triggered the ruling after years of legal procedures.
He first filed a complaint in 2013, after former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the American government was snooping on people’s online data and communications. The revelations included detail on how Facebook gave U.S. security agencies access to the personal data of Europeans.
Though the legal case was triggered by concerns over Facebook in particular, it could have far-reaching implications not only for tech companies but also businesses in sectors like finance and the auto industry.  
Things like email, flight and hotel reservations would not be affected in the short term, experts say. Cloud services by providers like Microsoft will also continue, pending any intervention from a regulator.
Companies use legal mechanisms called standard contractual clauses that force businesses to abide by strict EU privacy standards when transferring messages, photos and other information. The clauses — which are stock terms and conditions — are used to ensure the EU rules are maintained when data leaves the bloc.
The Court of Justice of the EU ruled Thursday that those clauses are still valid in principle. However, it declared invalid the Privacy Shield agreement between the U.S. and EU on data transfers over concerns that the U.S. can demand access to consumer data for national security reasons.
It said that in cases where there are concerns about data privacy, EU regulators should vet, and if needed block, the transfer of data. That raises the prospect that EU regulators will block Facebook, for example, from transferring any more European data to the U.S.
The court noted in its ruling that there are “limitations on the protection of personal data arising from the domestic law of the United States on the access and use by U.S. public authorities of such data transferred from the European Union to that third country.”
Government surveillance of personal data is something the U.S. in its turn accuses China of doing through tech companies  like Huawei. It highlights the growing importance of data as the basis of modern business and politics globally.  
Data drives much of the world’s biggest companies, like Facebook, Google, Alibaba and Amazon, and is also prized for national security to prevent extremist attacks, for example. Mining large sets of people’s data has also become crucial to winning elections, such as the use of Facebook data for Donald Trump’s presidential victory in 2016.
Alexandre Roure, a senior manager at Computer & Communications Industry Association, said the decision “creates legal uncertainty for the thousands of large and small companies on both sides of the Atlantic that rely on Privacy Shield for their daily commercial data transfers.  
“We trust that EU and U.S. decision-makers will swiftly develop a sustainable solution, in line with EU law, to ensure the continuation of data flows which underpins the trans-Atlantic economy.” 
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A breach in Twitter’s security that allowed hackers to break into the accounts of leaders and technology moguls is one of the worst attacks in recent years and may shake trust in a platform politicians and CEOs use to communicate with the public, experts said Thursday.  The ruse discovered Wednesday included bogus tweets from Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Celebrities Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, were also hacked.  Hackers used social engineering to target some of Twitter’s employees and then gained access to the high-profile accounts. The attackers sent out tweets from the accounts of the public figures, offering to send $2,000 for every $1,000 sent to an anonymous Bitcoin address.Cybersecurity experts say such a breach could have dire consequences since the attackers were tweeting from verified, globally influential accounts with millions of followers.”If you receive a tweet from a verified account, belonging to a well-known and therefore trusted person, you can no longer assume it’s really from them,” said Michael Gazeley, managing director of cybersecurity firm Network Box.Reacting to the breach, Twitter swiftly deleted the tweets and locked down the accounts to investigate. In the process it prevented verified users from sending out tweets for several hours.
The company said Thursday it has taken “significant steps to limit access to internal systems and tools.”Many celebrities, politicians and business leaders often use Twitter as a public platform to make statements. U.S. President Donald Trump, for example, regularly uses Twitter to post about national and geopolitical matters, and his account is closely followed by media, analysts and governments around the world.Twitter faces an uphill battle in regaining people’s confidence, Gazeley said. For a start, it needs to figure out exactly the accounts were hacked and show the vulnerabilities have been fixed, he said.”If key employees at Twitter were tricked, that’s actually a serious cybersecurity problem in itself,” he said. “How can one of the world’s most used social media platforms have such weak security, from a human perspective?”Rachel Tobac, CEO of Socialproof Security, said that the breach appeared to be largely financially motivated. But such an attack could cause more serious consequences.”Can you imagine if they had taken over a world leader’s account, and tweeted out a threat of violence to another country’s leader?” asked Tobac, a social engineering hacker who specializes in providing training for companies to protect themselves from such breaches.Social engineering attacks typically target human weaknesses to exploit networks and online platforms. Companies can guard themselves against such attacks by beefing up multi-factor authentication -– where users have to present multiple pieces of evidence as authentication before being allowed to log into a system, Tobac said.Such a process could include having a physical token that an employee must have with them, on top of a password, before they can log into a corporate or other private system. Other methods include installing technical tools to monitor for suspicious insider activities and reducing the number of people who have access to an administrative panel, Tobac said.  U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley called on Twitter to co-operate with authorities including the Department of Justice and the FBI to secure the site.”I am concerned that this event may represent not merely a coordinated set of separate hacking incidents but rather a successful attack on the security of Twitter itself,” he said.He added that millions of users relied on Twitter not just to send tweets but also communicate privately via direct messaging.”A successful attack on your system’s servers represents a threat to all of your users’ privacy and data security,” said Hawley.
  
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