Collaborate Disseminate
Collectively, 240 fraudulent Android apps — masquerading as retro game emulators — account for 14 million installs. Continue reading RAINBOWMIX Apps in Google Play Serve Up Millions of Ad Fraud Victims
The massive ICEBUCKET scheme has, so far, impersonated more than 2m people in 30+ countries, defrauding more than 300 brands of ad dollars. Continue reading Bot creates millions of fake eyeballs to rip off smart-TV advertisers
Crooks manipulated connected TV supply-side ad platforms to create millions of fictional eyeballs. Continue reading Streaming TV Fraudsters Steal Millions of Ad Dollars in ‘ICEBUCKET’ Attack
Scammers who have infiltrated the advertising ecosystem are using data centers to impersonate a range of connected devices in order to defraud marketers, according to new findings. New York-based security firm White Ops on Thursday disclosed a vast, ongoing scheme in which fraudsters are charging advertising companies for ad space on smart TVs, and then not delivering on their promise. To boost their credibility, the scammers are disguising bot activity which originates in global data centers as legitimate traffic in order to dupe anti-fraud services. The campaign, which White Ops has named Ice Bucket, is an updated version of the notorious Methbot/3ve scheme, in which scammers sold commercial advertising space in videos and websites that were never viewed by real humans. Methbot scammers earned roughly $29 million between 2014 and 2018, according to the Department of Justice, and also used data center traffic to seem legitimate. While White Ops declined […]
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Continue reading Scammers are masquerading as smart TV owners to fleece advertisers, researchers say
White Ops, the global leader in bot mitigation, announced the release of Application Integrity, a new offering designed to protect enterprises from sophisticated bot-based threats including account takeover, automated account creation, and web scraping… Continue reading White Ops Application Integrity: Protecting enterprises from sophisticated bot attacks
White Ops, the global leader in bot mitigation, announced the formation of the Satori Threat Intelligence and Research Team, a specialized team dedicated to researching the threats and trends that organizations are facing from sophisticated bot attacks… Continue reading New team of White Ops experts to help clients and security practitioners fight sophisticated bot attacks
White Ops, the global leader in bot mitigation, verifying the humanity of more than 1 trillion digital interactions per week, announced the appointment of Dr. Russell Handorf, former Computer Scientist with the FBI, to Principal Threat Intelligence Hac… Continue reading White Ops appoints Dr. Russell Handorf to Principal Threat Intelligence Hacker
White Ops, the global leader in bot mitigation verifying the humanity of more than 1 trillion digital interactions per week, announced the appointment of Rhushabh ‘Rush’ Mehta, former Head of Foundational Technology at Audible, an Amazon Company, to Wh… Continue reading White Ops appoints Rhushabh ‘Rush’ Mehta as Sr. VP of Engineering
A sneaky network of more than 100 Android applications is allowing fraudsters to make money by pushing pervasive advertisements to users’ devices, according to new cybersecurity findings. The device owners aren’t the real victims, even though they’re being exploited. The constant stream of ads, some miniscule and others loud and inescapable, are leveraging victims’ phones as conduits for scammers to rip off companies’ marketing dollars. More than 100 applications with some 4.6 million downloads from the Google Play Store include malicious code that enables the bogus advertising network, according to research published Thursday by the bot detection firm White Ops. Android subscribers who downloaded these apps, some of which still existed on the Play Store at press time, believed they were installing programs that would predict their fortune, play games, take selfies or remove bugs. But the apps also abused their access to inundate the devices with advertisements that could be tracked but often couldn’t be […]
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The FBI’s investigation into the largest advertising fraud operation in recent memory isn’t over yet. An application for a search warrant filed by FBI Special Agent Evelina Aslanyana on Aug. 2 and made public this week shows that investigators are seeking access to email, LinkedIn and other data about accused members of the Methbot ad fraud operation, also known as 3ve. Eight suspects were indicted in November in the Eastern District of New York for alleged involvement in a scheme to defraud advertisers out of more than $30 million by using botnets and other technical means to artificially inflate web traffic to dummy websites. Investigators previously had said the operation was disrupted when the apparent ringleaders, led by Aleksandr Zhukov, were arrested last year. The fraud, which the FBI had classified into three distinct time periods, is still underway, according to the search warrant application. In the affidavit, the FBI refers […]
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Continue reading The FBI is diving deeper into the Methbot ad fraud case