A Parallel World Sustainability Site Hacked by Russian Cyber Bots

    SANTA FE, NM, March 31, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- It appears that the Russian hackers who planted thousands of Internet "bots" to sway the 2016 election toward Donald Trump are bored. AParallelWorld.com, America's Sustainability Website, has learned that just after the election our site came under a withering cyber attack. Hundreds of "bots" flooded the site in order to block APW from communicating with its members.

In late March APW was notified by our email provider about dozens of complaints regarding our emails. The team was both surprised and shaken since this "Thursday Update" is vital in communicating with you, our members. In looking deeper, some very unsettling news was discovered.

The Russians Are Here
APW's email analytics revealed that of the first 100 clicks listed on its weekly email, 98 of them came from Russia (mail.ru). Said APW founder Alan Hoffman, "Finding out about this attack left us scratching our heads. APW is a national website to help Americans make the transition to a cost effective sustainable lifestyle. Why were we getting so many visitors from Russia?"

"Well, now we know," continued Hoffman, "This is what a computer "bot" attack looks like. The first email to click on our links was [email protected] and it clicked on 30 of our links to articles in one minute. No human would click this many that fast."

"The second attacker, [email protected] clicked on 33 links, also in less than a minute. A third Russian address, [email protected], clicked on 37 separate articles in under a minute," said a surprised Hoffman.

Why Would Russia Attack?
At first we here at APW were at a loss to explain why Russian hackers would bother with a sustainability website in the US. Since then we believe we've figured it out -- When the hackers gained access to the APW site they loaded it with hundreds of email addresses hacked from other sites. Those hacked addresses then started receiving the APW "Thursday Update" email even though they weren't APW members.

Everyone knows the frustration of receiving unsolicited emails from unfamiliar organizations. No surprise then that many non-APW members receiving its "Thursday Update" marked it as "spam." This Russian hacking action hurt the site's SEO, damaged its delivery rate and left us wondering why APW would be subject to such a malicious cyber attack.

Anti-Trump, Anti-Fossil Fuel Attract Attack
We've since learned that cyber "bots" are completely autonomous and automatic. They are programmed to identify certain key words and then go into action. In the case of social media they identify messages that are anti-Trump or anti-fossil fuel (which APW is) and then attack in order to "bury" the site's message.

We believe APW has received significant damage caused by the cyber-attack. APW's recently launched the two-min video; "How to Move from Corporate Control to Sustainable Democracy" has been suppressed.

A Dangerous Message -- Placing Power with the People

A most important by-product of these actions shown in the video is the shifting of political power away from mega-corporations back to the people. Between that message and all our efforts to promote "How to Move from Corporate Control to Sustainable Democracy," we were surprised at how few people were taking the two minutes to watch it. Now we know why.

APW is turning over all its information about this Russian cyber-attack to the FBI. It has also dramatically increased its own security and is once again getting the truth out about how sustainable living equals political power.

Please help APW in its efforts by sharing "How to Move from Corporate Control to Sustainable Democracy."

www.AparallelWorld.Com, LLC was founded by long-time green developer, Alan Hoffman. Alan envisions the mass market turning environmental challenges into solutions. Twenty-plus experts from Santa Fe and around the country stepped forward to help create Alan's concept. Set up like a cooperative, the APW Team launched the APW Marketplace, a "one-stop shop" for sustainable products and services at AParallelWorld.com. Get direct access to APW vendors you can trust while enjoying money-saving member discounts and bonuses.

# # #