With a story ran on December 30th 2016, CNN used footage from Bethesda’s open world RPG Fallout 4’s hacking mini-game as B-roll to illustrate reports of hacking activities committed by Russia security hacker. This has been first spotted by Poofylicious on Reddit who put on the screenshot as below.
CNN uses Fallout hacking footage to show how Russians hack. from fo4
The actual video clip on CNN about President Obama proposing sanctions against Russia for its roll in cyberattacks targeting the United States can be found here, with the footage in question playing about a minute in.
[Update #2] CNN has since replaced the clip on their website, though it is still available on CNN YouTube channel.
Read also: Sputnik:Fake News: CNN Uses Screenshots from Fallout 4 to Depict Russian Hackers
[Update #1] Bethesda has taken the incident in good humor. Studio Vice President Pete Hines tweeted:
Wait till they discover FO4 players were actually helping Russians and cracking real security through that mini game.
Bethesda Game Studios’ Twitter account joined in by posting an image of one of the terminals along with the message that it was an early look at the next season of Mr. Robot.
Sneak Peek at Season 3 of @whoismrrobot pic.twitter.com/S7VMj9Xx5E
— BethesdaGameStudios (@BethesdaStudios) January 2, 2017
Also read:
Techspot: CNN uses Fallout 4 to illustrate Russian hacking activities; Bethesda responds with mocking tweets
Kotaku: CNN Shows Fallout Computer Terminal In A Video About Russian Hacking
A screen image was used that appeared to be random hacking numbers, but upon closer inspection, it was actually screenshot taken from Fallout 4’s mini-games.
Also read: WWG: CNN Uses a Fallout 4 Screenshot For a Russian Hacking Story
According to CNN, Russia used the game Fallout to hack things… Journalism fail. – Reddit user Poofylicious
Also read: BGR: CNN uses screenshot from ‘Fallout 4’ to show how Russians hack things
The Fallout series is best known for its charming 1950s aesthetic, post-apocalyptic open world and diverse combat mechanics. However one of the more innocuous aspects is hacking.
Also read: Twinfinite: CNN Uses a Fallout 4 Computer Terminal In Report on Russian Hacking
