A security specialist spoke about the complexity and cost of bots for attacks on Prince Harry 
how bots are used to spread conspiracy theories and misinformation on social media. Earlier, the American company Bot Sentinel revealed details about the organization of attacks on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, carried out by just such methods.
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A Bot Sentinel study found that just 83 Twitter accounts generate about 70 percent of negative content about Harry and Meghan. Then their publication is automatically relayed by a network of hundreds of bots, created according to a similar pattern. As a result, the potential audience for disinformation grows to 17 million users. “This level of sophistication can only come from people who know how to do these things and who are paid to do it,” said the head of Bot Sentinel Christopher Bouzie.
Co-founder of the StopPhish information security project Yuri Drugach told Lenta.ru that such means are rarely used for non-political purposes due to the complexity and price of bots. “Such projects will pay off only with large-scale actions, and this is not affordable for ordinary manipulators,” he explained. There are cases when bots were used to spread misinformation about COVID-19, to manipulate the stock market or cryptocurrency rates.
According to Drugach, accounts designed for such uses are openly sold and can be bought by anyone. Their price depends on the promotion, age and trust on the part of the service and can range from a few rubles to several tens of thousands of rubles. “Mass management of bots requires either a lot of people or software,” said the specialist. “Programs for managing such bots are free, paid ones cost about 15 thousand rubles.”
For point “events” people are more suitable. You need to understand that if you need to manage five to ten bots a day, one person is enough. Dozens of specialists are needed to post thousands of meaningful, non-spam messages. Depending on the organizers, salaries will vary accordingly. No special qualifications are required for such workers. Enough competent instructions
Yuri DrugachCo-founder of the StopPhish information security project
The risk of becoming a victim of such attacks is not only among VIPs like Prince Harry. According to Drugach, extortionists use bots to blackmail and discredit. He mentioned a case when the attackers demanded money from the victim and promised, if they refused, to pay to ruin his reputation. To do this, with the help of bots, they published in the comments under the posts of celebrities a defamatory statement that their victim was a pedophile.
“When we investigated this case, it turned out that not only he was blackmailed,” Druhach said. – For different people they used a different legend. For example, they wrote for women that they had killed a child and they are wanted. ”
Although Bot Sentinel has not been able to establish who is behind the slanderous accounts and bots, there is nothing impossible in this. “It's always just a matter of resources and interests of specific people,” says Drugach.