Journalists going solo on Substack at risk from hackers

Alys Keys reports that journalists going solo on Substack are at risk from hackers, with phishing playing a central role. Former BuzzFeed journalist Anne Helen Petersen received an email warning of suspicious activity on her Substack account and that her ability to send emails would be frozen until she confirmed she wasn’t a bot. The email was a classic phishing scam, designed to trick recipients into handing over log-in details.

The attackers gained access to Petersen’s account, which has more than 25,000 followers across her newsletter and podcast, both called Culture Study. They proceeded to add thousands more email addresses to the mailing list and changed the newsletter’s name, impersonating crypto wallet company Trezor. Read more at PressGazette. According to PressGazette, these details illustrate the ongoing phishing threat facing independent writers leveraging Substack to reach audiences.