Inside the fake review trade

[wtg]

Recently, our team exposed sophisticated scam kits designed to steal sensitive data and trick consumers. But underground marketplaces are not just for malware and stolen passwords. They also offer services designed to manipulate your opinion of the products and services you buy every day.

In our latest research, we examined cybercrime forums where sellers advertise illicit “reputation management” services. For the right price, these underground operators offer to flood a product with glowing, five-star ratings or remove negative reviews. This shadowy industry works both ways—artificially boosting reputations and deliberately hiding legitimate complaints.

A major shift we are seeing in this space is the adoption of new technology. We also found that cybercriminals are using AI to automate these fake review campaigns. This could allow them to quickly generate realistic, human-sounding feedback in large volumes without much manual effort.

htps://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/threat-intel/2026/11/5-stars-for-sale-inside-the-underground-fake-review-trade

[Steve Miller]

Lots of fake reviews on Amazon now. So many that pretty much anything gets a 4.5 star rating. If it gets less than that it’s likely trash.

My workaround is to read only 3, 2, and 1 star ratings - the ones that bring the rating down to 4.5 stars. If the reasons for low ratings don’t matter to me (you can’t please everyone) then I’ll probably buy it. If they do matter (generally reasons/photos involving smoke, fire, or rapid disintegration), I’ll pass. I suppose it’s possible that competitors hire out for negative reviews but that doesn’t seem real common.

Another workaround is to scroll down some 20 pages before comparing what’s on offer. The product mix changes completely and the number of reviews drops considerably.