AD FRAUD ON STEROIDS
“This is not your run-of-the-mill fraud scheme.”
An incredible investigation uncovered a sophisticated ad fraud scheme powered by over 125 Android apps and websites that has resulted in $75 million per year in fraudulent ad rev.
Mobile Ad Fraud: By The Numbers
23 — percentage of all ad impressions in mobile apps that are fraudulent
700,000 — apps Google removed last year from policy violations.
7,000,000 — dollars stolen from mobile apps in Q1 alone this year (AppsFlyer)
19,000,000,000 — estimated dollars stolen this year by digital ad fraudsters
So how did this elaborate scheme work? Here’s a quick breakdown:
Step 1: 💰Acquire an Android app (using bitcoin) that has real users, favorable reviews, and an overall positive reputation.
Step 2:👻Shift ownership to a shell company to obscure its true ownership and to hide its links to other apps in the scheme.
Step 3:👨💻Utilize developer access to the app to analyse the behaviour of its existing human audience
Step 4:🤖Program that behaviour into bots running from dedicated servers so they can mimic the human audience
Step 5:📲Direct bot traffic to the app
Step 6:👤🤖👤Blend bot traffic with existing human traffic to disguise it from fraud detection
Step 7:💰💰💰 Earn additional revenue from to ads viewed by bots
Incredible.
>> Read Full Story <<
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Originally published at mrktrs.co on October 25, 2018.
