Summary: A Rented Asset is an asset which actors are temporarily renting or subscribing to.
For example, threat actors have been observed renting temporary access to legitimate accounts on online platforms in order to disguise operation activity.
Tactic: TA15 Establish Assets
Parent Technique: T0150 Asset Origin
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| Incident | Descriptions given for this incident |
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| I00113 Inside the Shadowy World of Disinformation for Hire in Kenya | In this article VICE News discusses a report produced by Advance Democracy on people who use Patreon to spread the false claim that an impending ice age will reverse the harms of the ongoing climate crisis: “The spread of climate misinformation is prolific on social media, as well as on sites like Patreon, where users are actually financially compensated through the platform for spreading falsehoods,” Daniel Jones, president of Advance Democracy, told VICE News. “Companies hosting and promoting climate misinformation have a responsibility to take action to reduce dangerous misinformation, as falsehoods about climate science are every bit as dangerous as lies about vaccinations and disinformation about our elections.” Patreon did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment on the report’s findings. One of the biggest accounts spreading climate conspiracies is ADAPT 2030, which is run by David DuByne, who has 1,100 followers on Patreon. He is currently making over $3,500 every month from his subscribers. [The science DuByne relies on does not support his hypothesis. However,] this has not prevented DuByne and many others from preying on people’s fears about climate change to spread conspiracies about an impending ice age, which they say will miraculously fix all of earth’s climate problems. DuByne offers seven different membership levels for supporters, beginning at just $1 per month. The most expensive costs $100 a month, and gives patrons “a private 20-minute call with David DuByne once per month, to discuss your particular preparedness issues or concerns.” So far just two people are paying this amount. The researchers also found at least eight other accounts on Patreon that have spread climate change conspiracy theories as part of wider conspiracy sharing, including baseless claims about COVID-19 and the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s presidency. Some of these accounts are earning over $600 per month. David DuByne created an account on Patreon, which he uses to post text, videos, and podcasts for his subscribers to discuss (T0085: Develop Text-Based Content, T0087: Develop Video-Based Content, T0088: Develop Audio-Based Content, T0146: Account Asset, T0115: Post Content, T0152.012: Subscription Service Platform, T0151.014: Comments Section, T0155.006: Subscription Access Asset). |
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