I read that last week as well.  The way it's structured and programmed is indeed deliberate and sneaky, or so it seems.  Will find the article and post it here.  It's an interesting read, to say the least.

As for CCH, there's news that the outage was caused by a crypto ransomeware.  Guess nobody is immune and you do get targeted when you're big.  You'd think they have a contingency plan that would be put in place immediately and there would be better communication...