Internet Disinformation Service for Hire
Yet another leaked catalog of Internet attack services, this one specializing in disinformation:
But Aglaya had much more to offer, according to its brochure. For eight to 12 weeks campaigns costing €2,500 per day, the company promised to “pollute” internet search results and social networks like Facebook and Twitter “to manipulate current events.” For this service, which it labelled “Weaponized Information,” Aglaya offered “infiltration,” “ruse,” and “sting” operations to “discredit a target” such as an “individual or company.”
“[We] will continue to barrage information till it gains ‘traction’ & top 10 search results yield a desired results on ANY Search engine,” the company boasted as an extra “benefit” of this service.
Aglaya also offered censorship-as-a-service, or Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, for only €600 a day, using botnets to “send dummy traffic” to targets, taking them offline, according to the brochure. As part of this service, customers could buy an add-on to “create false criminal charges against Targets in their respective countries” for a more costly €1 million.
[…]
Some of Aglaya’s offerings, according to experts who reviewed the document for Motherboard, are likely to be exaggerated or completely made-up. But the document shows that there are governments interested in these services, which means there will be companies willing to fill the gaps in the market and offer them.
Subscribe to comments on this entry
Tatütata • September 6, 2016 2:51 PM
Nothing really new… Isn’t this what PR flacks are for in general?
Circa 15 years ago there was an attack on the Usenet forums I used to haunt to plug Segways. The blabbering droids were almost hilarious, but it wasn’t a very effective strategy.
Putin’s state-sponsored “troll factory” is far better implemented.