Disinformation-as-a-service: Fake news for sale

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  Quantumrun Foresight
• November 18, 2022

Insight summary

Similar to the shadowy schemes of rogue nation-states, cybercriminals are offering disinformation-as-a-service (DaaS). However, cybercriminals are more likely to sell these fake news campaigns to the private sector instead of trying to sway elections or control political conversations. The long-term implications of this trend include more competitive pricing from providers and companies collaborating with these parties for smear campaigns.

Disinformation-as-a-service context

Some underground forums are havens for commercial disinformation-as-a-service. Members of these criminal forums will create full-scale disinformation campaigns that businesses can use to engineer fake positive publicity about themselves. Content creators can also tailor negative disinformation campaigns to damage businesses' rivals.

These disinformation tactics can severely affect legitimate firms and federal agencies. For example, in 2018, a fake US Department of Defense memo said that a semiconductor company's planned purchase of another tech company had caused national security problems. This memo rapidly decreased the stocks of both companies. 

While cybersecurity firms have steadily improved their technologies to detect hacking and data manipulation attempts, cybercriminals are continuing to stay one step ahead. Although disinformation may initially seem like other types of fraud, public relations crises, or cyberattacks because they share some commonalities, there are several key ways in which it differs. The primary strategy in DaaS is amplification through superspreaders, flooding social media platforms with fabricated articles and content. According to a 2019 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study, false information is 70 percent more likely to be shared or re-tweeted than content from verified media organizations.

Disruptive impact

In 2019, cybersecurity firm Recorded Future released a report on disinformation services for the private sector. Their research team Insikt Group pretended to be a company in an underground forum and hired two different Russia-based DaaS providers. The first provider was in-charge of spinning positive public relations content for the fictitious company and the second vendor was in charge of maligning the rival company.

The research team discovered that launching a disinformation campaign is relatively simple and cheap. The service providers listed their account handles in the encrypted messaging platforms Jabber and Telegram on the forum, along with their pricing models. Examples of pricing include $15 USD for 1,000-word articles and $8 USD for social media posts and commentaries (1,000 characters max).

In addition, companies can pay $1,500 USD to receive SEO services to promote their social media posts and traditional media articles. The time frame for this project is 10 to 15 days. The team also remarked on how professional these DaaS providers were, speaking fluent English and performing high-level customer relationship management. Ultimately, the two disinformation campaigns only cost Insikt Group USD $6,500. 

To help spread false content, private disinformation campaigns like these employ similar tactics to nation-state-sponsored operations, including newly created and long-standing accounts on major social media sites to distribute news. In some situations, real people and propaganda bots were replying to the companies' official accounts. 

Implications of disinformation-as-a-service

Wider implications of DaaS may include: 

• More cybercriminals switching from ransomware hacking to DaaS, as these disinformation campaigns are easier to implement.


• More underground forums offering DaaS with competitive pricing as more parties enter the domain.


• Governments attempting to regulate these forums and track criminal activities; however, this trend would prove difficult for governments because of masking technologies like virtual private networks. 


• More companies and governments engaging in DaaS, resulting in more fake content and reputation smearing on social media.


• Regulatory bodies establishing fines and penalties for parties caught implementing DaaS campaigns.


• Increased public distrust in digital content, prompting a greater demand for verified and trustworthy sources.


• Businesses shifting their focus to reputation management strategies to combat the impact of DaaS.


• Enhanced AI-driven tools being developed by tech companies to automatically detect and flag disinformation, altering the landscape of content moderation.

Questions to consider

• How do you think DaaS will change how businesses operate and disperse information?


• What are the other ways that governments can protect companies from DaaS?