September 23, 2022
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0Tens of Thousands of People Watched a Fake Apple Event Live
On the evening of September 7, in parallel with the presentation of the new iPhones, several other fake broadcasts were presented on YouTube on behalf of Apple, which were watched by tens of thousands of people.
Read more in this article.
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What happened?
Someone successfully used Apple’s launch of the new iPhone for their own purposes. More precisely, the scammers took advantage of the traditionally high interest in the new products of the Apple corporation: they launched a stream with the alleged participation of Tim Cook. However, as explained in The Verge, the video used an old interview with the head of Apple — from 2018.
The original interview, conducted by CNN Money, included the CNN logo in plain sight in the upper left corner, and the scammers only added a little camouflage, competently placing the name of the fake presentation over the logo adding their own. They also added tags with Apple-related keywords. Viewers were invited to watch the Apple Crypto Event 2022, and so there would be no doubt about its importance, they wrote in capital letters at the bottom of the video: URGENT NEWS.
Viewers, who numbered in the tens of thousands, were invited to follow a link, but the external resource, of course, had nothing to do with Apple. By the way, the channel was called Apple LIVE, but it was probably created earlier, and the scammers, having seized control, renamed it into something “actual-catchy.”
Journalists found another fake channel called Apple Inc, in which viewers were promised a stream featuring Tim Cook and Elon Musk on the topic of Apple and the metaverse. In fact, it was an interview with Musk and Jack Dorsey about Bitcoin repurposed by the authors of the fake Apple Inc channel. This stream was watched by more than 10,000 people.
Details of fake streams
The stream called “Apple Event Live. CEO of Apple Tim Cook: Apple & Metaverse in 2022” showed an interview with Tim Cook from CNN, which was held in 2018. The streamer added the Bitcoin and Etherium logos to the image and covered the CNN logo with the text “Apple Crypto Event 2022.” The number of live viewers reached at least 70,000 people.
Another broadcast on the channel called “Apple Inc” purported to be a discussion of the metaverse with Tim Cook and Elon Musk. But the video sequence was taken from a conversation between Musk and the head of Block Jack Dorsey, which took place in 2021. At least 10,000 people were watching the stream at one point. Both broadcasts were removed by YouTube for violating the rules of use of the site.
The reason for the streams
It is believed that scammers are behind these broadcasts, luring people into crypto scams.
After the journalists’ appeal to YouTube, the video platform deleted the fake broadcasts on behalf of Apple.
The important rules to be secure on the internet are here.
