The same sorts of organizations that once made their money performing "black SEO"—using fraudulent means to raise paying customers' search engine ranks, often for illicit reasons—are now diving into a whole new sort of online manipulation. Researchers at security threat tracking company Recorded Future have found companies selling disinformation campaign capabilities similar to the ones used by Russian "troll factories" during the 2016 US presidential campaign and other state-sponsored information operations.
In a report issued this month, researchers from Recorded Future's Insikt Group describe how they engaged two providers of advertising disinformation services to assess the threat posed by such operations. Both disinformation operators were advertising services on Russian-language underground forums alongside purveyors of hacking tools and other criminal activities. But one of the services also has a public Internet presence, offering less illicit marketing services through an open website.
"Both of these companies, their bread and butter is negative takedown stuff—discrediting your opponent or competitor," Recorded Future Director of Analysts Roman Sannikov told Ars in an interview. "But they can also promote companies, using the same networks of social media accounts."
To gain greater insight into how these services operate, Sannikov and others at Recorded Future approached the groups advertising trolling services as prospective customers. One group was engaged to create a positive social media spin for a fictitious company Recorded Future created, purportedly based in England, on behalf of the fictional company's owner. The other was engaged by a fictional competitor to that company to attack its reputation on social media and besmirch its heretofore nonexistent reputation.
"The [initial] investigation only took about six weeks," Sannikov said, "and most of that was trying to milk information from the actors about their activities." Once they were paid and tasked, Sannikov explained, "it only took seven to ten business days" before the work was done.
Make me some friends
The group tasked with creating a positive social media presence advertised the following services:
- $150 for Facebook and other social media accounts and content
- $200 for LinkedIn accounts and content
- $350–$550 per month for social media marketing
- $45 for a news article up to 1,000 characters
- $65 to contact a media source directly to spread material
- $100 per 10 comments for a given article or news story