ad fraud | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A Russian hacker indicted by a United States court for his involvement in online ad fraud schemes that defrauded multiple American companies out of tens of millions of dollars pleaded not guilty on Friday in a courtroom in Brooklyn, New York. Aleksandr Zhukov , 38, was arrested in November last year by Bulgarian authorities after the U.S. issued an international warrant against him, and was extradited by Bulgaria to the United States on Thursday (January 18, 2019). He is currently in prison in Brooklyn. In November 2018, law enforcement and multiple security firms collaborated to shut down one of the largest digital ad-fraud schemes, which they dubbed 3ve , that infected over 1.7 million computers worldwide to generate fake clicks used to defraud digital advertisers for years and made tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Pronounced "Eve," the online ad-fraud campaign was believed to have been active since at least 2014, but its fraudulent activity grew last yea...

Google, the FBI, ad-fraud fighting company WhiteOps and a collection of cyber security companies worked together to shut down one of the largest and most sophisticated digital ad-fraud schemes that infected over 1.7 million computers to generate fake clicks used to defraud online advertisers for years and made tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Dubbed 3ve (pronounced "Eve"), the online ad-fraud campaign is believed to have been active since at least 2014, but its fraudulent activity grew last year, turning it into a large-scale business and earning their operators more than $30 million in profit. Meanwhile, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) also unsealed Tuesday a 13-count indictment against 8 people from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine who allegedly ran this massive online advertising scheme. The 3ve botnet scheme deployed different tactics, such as creating their own botnets, creating fake versions of both websites and visitors, selling fraudulent...

Cheetah Mobile —a prominent Chinese app company, known for its popular utility apps like Clean Master and Battery Doctor—and one of its subsidiary Kika Tech have allegedly been caught up in an Android ad fraud scheme that stole millions of dollars from advertisers. According to app analytics firm Kochava , 7 Android apps developed by Cheetah Mobile and 1 from Kika Tech with a total 2 billion downloads on Google Play Store have been accused of falsely claiming the credits for driving the installation of new apps in order to claim a fee or bounty. Many mobile application developers generate revenue by promoting and recommending the installation of other apps inside their apps for a fee or a bounty that typically ranges from $0.50 to $3.00. To know which advertisement recommended the app and should get the credit, the newly installed app does a "lookback" immediately after it is opened for the first time to see from where the last click was originated and attribute the ...

HummingBad – an Android-based malware that infected over 10 million Android devices around the world last year and made its gang an estimated US$300,000 per month at its peak – has made a comeback. Security researchers have discovered a new variant of the HummingBad malware hiding in more than 20 Android apps on Google Play Store. The infected apps were already downloaded by over 12 Million unsuspecting users before the Google Security team removed them from the Play Store. Dubbed HummingWhale by researchers at security firm Check Point, the new malware utilizes new, cutting-edge techniques that allow the nasty software to conduct Ad fraud better than ever before and generate revenue for its developers. The Check Point researchers said the HummingWhale-infected apps had been published under the name of fake Chinese developers on the Play Store with common name structure, com.[name].camera, but with suspicious startup behaviors. "It registered several events on boot,...

The biggest advertising fraud ever! A group of hackers is making between $3 Million to $5 Million per day from United States brands and media companies in the biggest digital ad fraud ever discovered. Online fraud-prevention firm White Ops uncovered this new Ad fraud campaign, dubbed " Methbot ," that automatically generates more than 300 Million fraudulent video ad impressions every day. The cyber criminal gang, dubbed AFT13, has developed Methbot robo-browser that spoofs all the necessary interactions needed to initiate, carry out and complete the ad transactions. The hackers, allegedly based in Russia, registered more than 6,000 domains and 250,267 distinct URLs impersonating brand and names of high-profile websites like ESPN, Vogue, CBS Sports, Fox News and the Huffington Post, and selling fake video ad slots. Cyber criminals behind Methbot are using servers hosted in Texas and Amsterdam to power more than 570,000 bots with forged IP addresses, mostly belong...