The Malta Independent website has been a victim of spoofing, and a report has been filed with the police for an investigation.

In the past hours this office has received information from several readers that their social media feeds included a story which is appearing under The Malta Independent logo.

The story encourages people to invest on an online trading platform and includes comments from the President of Malta, George Vella.

The story is completely fake.

It is an example of what is known as spoofing, a broad term for behaviour that involves a cybercriminal masquerading as a trusted entity to get users to do something beneficial to the hacker — and detrimental to them.

A report has been lodged with the Cyber Crimes Unit of the police for investigation.