Ad Fraud

2021: A Russian was given 10 years in prison in the United States for selling advertising on fake Internet pages

On November 10, 2021, the US Department of Justice announced the conviction of Alexander Zhukov for fraud on the Internet. The 41-year-old Russian was sentenced by an American court to 10 years in prison, and will also have to pay more than $3.8 million. More details here.

2019: Revealed a fraudulent scheme that quickly discharges millions of Android smartphones

In March 2019, a giant fraud scheme was revealed in which hidden video ads were launched in Android applications. Because of it, the devices quickly discharged and personal data was transferred.

Fraudsters used services that pay for viewing ads, and made users allegedly run video announcements that were not actually visible to device owners. To implement the scam, attackers used popular applications that download millions of users.

In March 2019, a giant fraud scheme was revealed in which hidden video ads were launched in Android applications

The fraud was revealed by Protected Media, a company specializing in fraud detection. The existence of such a scheme to BuzzFeed News was confirmed by application developers who receive complaints from users that their programs transmit too much traffic and quickly discharge batteries in smartphones.

Journalists and cybersecurity experts conducted an investigation that indicated involvement in the fraudulent scheme of an Israeli company with offices in New York Aniview. It develops a platform for video advertising. Aniview denies involvement in fraud and, moreover, claims that the platform, banners and code created by one of the subsidiaries were used by someone to distribute malicious elements.

BuzzFeed News columnists gave a schematic description of the method that is used to deceive advertisers and advertising platforms.

The developer places a pop-up ad in his application that the client has ordered. To earn more and automate advertising revenue, third-party services are used. For example, one of the developers interviewed by BuzzFeed News collaborates with Twitter MoPub - one of the largest exchanges for the exchange of advertising mobile traffic.

According to Protected Media, it was through MoPub that most of the advertising from which fraudsters earned was purchased. This does not mean that the service was integrated with them, but he received a commission for ads purchased using his tools.

Fraudsters have learned to automatically play video announcements that are registered by the system as viewed, but in fact the user does not see them. In this scenario, developers receive a small fee for banner advertising visible to users, but scammers earn much more on what includes higher-paying ads in these ads that gadget owners do not see. In the end, it is brands whose ads were shown in hidden video players that lose money, giving it to fraudsters.

Fraudsters buy cheap ads placed inside applications and fill it with several video players with harmless fake advertising from manufacturers, "said Asaf Greiner, CEO of Protected Media.

In order not to lose money due to advertising to bots, you can use specialized services that provide statistics up to  the specific domain  from which the inappropriate display came. Roy Rosenfeld, vice president of product promotion management for one of these services, DoubleVerify, says the company discovered similar frauds with video ads in applications at the end of 2018. According to Rosenfeld, fraudsters have learned very well to hide advertising and hide traces of their actions, they come up with very complex monetization schemes. DoubleVerify registers at least 60 million fraudulent requests for video ads. Experts estimate this business at millions of dollars a month.^[1]

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