MOGADISHU, Somalia, 17 December, 2019 – Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) is concerned about vicious online attacks and misinformation campaign used in various platforms which contained malware and spyware content in the past few days.
SJS is fully aware of the actions of the organized groups involved in this heinous crime intended to jeopardize our noble work in defending press freedom in Somalia, while we warn these organized groups as our legal and technology experts already took measures against them.
Late on Friday 13 December, 2019 these groups launched an impersonating Twitter account which they used to distribute phishing content followed by circulation of bogus emails with copy-pasted SJS previous statements.
In a due diligence, SJS team supported by local and international technology firms carried out urgent investigation into the matter and found the following:
- On Friday 13 December, 2019 at 07:41, a Hormuud Telecom number “+252 617628466” was used to register an impersonating Twitter account and immediately started followingone senior Somali journalist.
- On Saturday 14 December, 2019, the impersonating Twitter tweeted its first tweet copy-pasting a previous SJS statement.
- On Sunday, 15 December, 2019 at 08:56a.m, unauthentic series of emails were sent from Outlook account, a private email owned by Microsoft Corporation. The sender used moalimuu@outlook.com. Again the same Hormuud number “+252 617628466” was used to register this Outlook email account.Among those targeted with the vicious emails included SJS leadership and its network of journalists.
- The originating IP address of the said email: moalimuu@outlook.com also showedMogadishu, Banadir as the sender’s actual location.
- The investigating team did a counter-check with Hormuud Telecom which showed the name of the subscriber of the number: “+252 617628466” as Mohamed Ibrahim Nur “Moalimuu”.
- On Monday 16 December, 2019 at 01:20p.m, SJS through WhatsApp call contacted Mohamed Ibrahim Nur aka “Moalimuu” seeking explanation and if whether he knew that his name and telephone number was used for the impersonating activity. Also we have inquired how his names and personal telephone number were used coincidentally to register with such impersonating accounts.
- Moalimuu initially denied owning the said email: moalimuu@outlook.com but later promised to investigate that his personal telephone number was the one used for registration of both impersonating Email and Twitter accounts. SJS did not hear back from Moalimuu since then.
- Additionally, SJS discovers that the mailing list used for the distribution of the phishing content is registered at Mad Mimi, an email marketing service based in U.S.
- Surprisingly on Monday, 16 December, 2019 at 09:00p.m, approximately 8 hours after SJS’s call with Moalimuu, the impersonating Outlook email account was removed and a probably new webmail-based email account registered with California, U.S.-based domain hosting service,was used to send fresh series of impersonating emails.
SJS condemns these illegal activities as we also urge our network of journalists, subscribers and press freedom organizations to ignore and report to us any unauthentic communications they might encounter in the future. SJS only communicates from its official channels: Email:sjs@sjsyndicate.org / alerts@sjsyndicate.org, Twitter: @sjs_Somalia, Facebook: Facebook.com/sjsyndicate and website www.sjsyndicate.org.
“We wish to alert our networks all over the world but also remain confident that these organized groups did not breach our systems. There are trying to create confusion and scare us from doing our work as defenders of press freedom and rights of journalists,” Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, Secretary General of Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) said.
“Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) is and will remain to be on the forefront of advocating for freedom of speech and protection of the rights of the journalists as our core principle. Nothing will stop us,” Mr. Mumin adds.
