mFilterIt
Contact Us
mfilterit

Ad Traffic Validation

ad-fraud-attacks

Ad Fraud Attacks on Gaming Apps

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog /

Market research suggests that mobile gaming apps will witness a CAGR of 12.3% between 2021 and 2026. The increment is attributed to the boost in WFH conditions, increased smartphone users, and tech adoption over the last couple of years. The penetration of mobile games through social apps like Facebook has also contributed to the incremental rise in the installation of gaming apps. The continents with the highest gaming app adoption include North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. A NASSCOM study estimated that the potential of the Indian mobile gaming market would reach 628 million users in 2020. The key competitors in the mobile gaming market include Tencent Holdings Limited, Zynga, Activision Blizzard Inc, and many others. The rise in the adoption of gaming apps has increased mobile ad fraud. Our research reveals that less than 36% of the online traffic includes humans, whereas 64% includes good and bad bots. Mobile ad fraud is a technique used by fraudsters to target mobile advertising (bypassing mobile marketing funnels) for obtaining financial gain. Our research states that fraud in apps can range between 18% and 36% depending upon the type. These include click spamming, SDK spoofing, incent fraud, IP fraud, geo fraud, etc. However, these don’t account for the 45% of retargeting ad fraud in the industry. Fraudsters infiltrative apps to steal paid/organic user credits, trigger in-app events, display false event information, etc. Moreover, ad fraud in mobile apps also hampers brand safety. Elimination of mobile ad fraud is important for avoiding misattribution, losing the advertising budget to fraudsters, and building strategies around real-time analytics. 3 Types of Fraud in Gaming Apps ●     CPA Fraud in App CPA models believe that quality users take action after installing the app. Advertisers use factors like tutorial completed, level reached, and in-app purchases to determine users’ lifetime value (LTV). The CPA model was adopted to diminish the install fraud rates. Unfortunately, fraudsters created SIVT or sophisticated invalid traffic to bypass fraud detection and crush in-app economies. Advertisers also generate revenue through in-app marketplaces and purchases. Freemium businesses also make revenue through in-app advertising. Advertisers make revenue based on cost-per-sale models created after analyzing premium users. Fraudsters use ad frauds to obtain the cost per action through in-app ads as the fixed percentages or rates provide high payouts. CPA campaigns are believed to be robust as they deter ad fraud because the general notion assumes that it is difficult to replicate in-app user behavior as compared to faking an install. Unfortunately, the bad actors are far smarter than that. The fraudsters not only use bots to create in-app events, but they go a step further and steal credentials such as account info, and credit details of real users (both organic and paid) who are likely to be far more active within the app. ●     Attribution Hijacking Publishers commonly work with attribution models for tracking events like installs, purchases, link clicks, etc. The fraudster acquires credit for the first/last click before the event, commonly installed in gaming apps. By doing so, fraudsters obtain revenue from advertisers in exchange for the fraud credits. The method affects organic and inorganic users equally. Install hijacking is commonly practiced by injecting false referrals or delivering false click reports. Users who click on an install app are redirected to the Play Store, and whenever the user installs the app on the Android device, the other apps are alerted through Standard Android Broadcast. Any malware installed through another app installation is triggered and builds a fake click report with install attribution towards the partner, even though it came from a media partner. Attribution hijacking is commonly witnessed in retargeting campaigns. ●     SDK Hacking/AKA Spoofing Another fraud that happens through existing malware in user devices through app installation is SDK hacking. This bot fraud spoof installs by tricking servers and providing monetary gain to cybercriminals. Brands using open-source technology or poor encryption should know that fraudsters use these loopholes for manipulating or reverse-engineering attribution codes. Besides installs, SDK spoofing can even tamper with clicks and other engagement signals. Identifying SDK spoofs requires tracking unused SDKs, watching out for install frauds, and generating a report for fraud exposure. The best methods to avoid AKA spoofing are avoiding open source SDKs, ensuring secure communication between SDKs and servers, detecting behavioral anomalies, and using a solution for bot detection. One of the largest drawbacks of mobile ad fraud is account takeover (ATO). It has led to implications like cyberbullying of children, loss of money, and data privacy breaches. Moreover, ATO attacks on apps can reward a fraudster instead of a professional with tournament entries and awards. ATO attacks also cause brand infringements, tarnish a brand’s reputation, and flush goodies out of inactive accounts. Conclusion The presence of ad fraud in the mobile advertising domain is causing serious grievances for advertisers and marketers. Brands should eliminate ad fraud by building marketing strategies with real analytics, saving dollars on spending, and acquiring real conversions. Combating ad fraud and ensuring brand safety requires a 360-degree solution with specialists available around the clock. Moreover, the ad fraud solution should have AI and ML capabilities to detect SIVT, analyze anomalies, and scan the web for brand infringement. By incorporating such a technology, brands can ensure a safer digital ecosystem, ad servers, and systems for managing consumer data. Get in touch to learn more about the Ad fraud attacks.

Ad Fraud Attacks on Gaming Apps Read More »

affiliate-campaign

What to Look for in Your Affiliate Campaign?

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog /

Affiliate marketing means hiring people to promote a brand/product/service to boost sales/leads/installs. Affiliates use websites, videos, and social media for advertising/marketing the product or service. Affiliate marketing drives performance. Affiliate marketing drives conversion/ sales/ revenue for a brand. It is one of the most effective tools for establishing a brand. Affiliate marketers combine multiple efforts to achieve the brand’s goals throughout the funnel. They help in attracting new demographics and help establish the market share of the brand by promoting the brand, positioning it ideally, and tapping the untapped regions. Unfortunately, advertisers/brands often become victims of affiliate fraud, i.e., generating fraudulent results in exchange for collecting financial payouts. In 2017, Kevin Frisch, Head of Performance Marketing and CRM, revealed that Uber diminished $100 million of $150 million yearly affiliate marketing spends. The paid promotion was for the installation of the rider app. The brand discovered no change in campaign performance after decreasing the advertising budget. Moreover, the brand detected that paid channel conversions were occurring through organic sources. In 2018, an IAB report stated that one-third of companies spend more than ten percent of their marketing budget on affiliate marketing. The study even revealed that 11% spent more than $100k monthly, whereas 28% invested $25k monthly. 4 Impacts of Affiliate Marketing Scams ● Loss of Trust The infiltration of fraud in affiliate marketing removes advertisers’ faith in running campaigns through it. Affiliate fraud also hampers the market reputation of legitimate publishers and drives away potential revenue from them. It impacts the company’s goodwill and trust negatively. The biggest fear of any business is to lose customers and frauds like this get you closer to this harsh reality. ● Lower ROIs One of the biggest drawbacks is the exponential increase in conversion costs. Bot-simulated clicks appear human, to begin with, and therefore advertisers pay for it. It is when they start engaging with it, that they realize the fake interaction and by then they have already bled their ad budgets. Affiliate fraud jeopardizes the potential ROI of a campaign. Brands receive fake leads/clicks/events that are meaningless. Third-party cookie dropping to simulate a click even though a user hasn’t engaged is a gross waste of advertising dollars. A closer look at down-the-funnel shows ridiculous ratios of click-to-visit and visit conversion ratios. Ultimately, a performance campaign that does not perform is not welcome by brands. ● Misguided Marketing Strategies Inaccurate numbers for running analytics are the foundation of the biggest strategic blunders that a brand can commit. Brands determine their ad campaign strategies based on the clicks, leads, and conversions. Unfortunately, affiliate fraud data adds fake data into the analysis. Because of the polluted data, it becomes challenging for marketers to determine the correct direction/approach for their upcoming campaigns which results in a potential loss of revenue for the brand. ● Devalues Marketing Efforts A recent study mentioned that two-thirds of the traffic online is contributed by good and bad bots and the balance is humans. In a situation like this falling prey to ad fraud can be the last nail in the coffin. Not having access to well-deserved data sets can choke the marketing funnel and create complete chaos within the organization. Exposure to polluted data from a sales/marketing standpoint can fundamentally jeopardize the business as a whole. 3 Methods to Identify Affiliate Fraud ● Unexpected Campaign Results On average, an install or click conversion rate through advertising campaigns doesn’t exceed 10%. So, if you witness a sudden spike of more than 40%, it is most likely fraudulent. Marketers and advertisers should analyze the affiliate source, compare the affiliate with other sources, etc. A proactive approach would include vetting the marketing partner before signing an agreement. Usually, an abnormally high CTR, very short user session (50% lower than average), high bounce rates, and visitors without cookie files are the most common parameters to understand fraud ● Unresponsive Leads As a marketer, it is very important to completely understand a user’s journey. This essentially helps to map the various stages leading up to conversion. This is the key to differentiating between a legitimate and an illegal engagement. Sudden spikes in traffic can be a very short-lived joy as the chances of fake leads being generated are considerably high. Machines don’t pay for things so taking up bot leads and hitting the wall is a marketer’s worst nightmare. ● Spike in Consumers Complaints Contacting forged data leads can often spike consumer complaints, as the person never connected with the brand or its advertisements. The consumer feels that their privacy is violated and they never convert. Moreover, brands can even witness unusual chargebacks or refunds. Many fraudsters make fake sales using stolen credit cards. So, the merchant might witness a high return volume or chargeback after paying a commission to the cybercriminal. Brands should investigate the cause of such complaints and unearth the fraudulent activity. 4 Types of Affiliate Fraud ● Cookie Stuffing Fraudsters use cookie stuffing for lead misattribution and to obtain financial gain from advertisers. A cookie is a tracking tool used for analyzing consumer journeys on a website. Cybercriminals drop third-party cookies on the visitor’s web browser without consent. These redirect the visitors to the brand’s website whenever they view the brand’s advertisement on a partner site. By doing so, fraud affiliates acquire attribution for click/view on the ads. Hence, cybercriminals hamper the campaigns of legitimate affiliates. ● URL Hijacking A common ad fraud practice associated with cookie stuffing is URL hijacking. Cybercriminals create URLs similar to the brand’s product/service pages with typos. A user redirects to the original website page after clicking these duplicate URLs. The Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) also display the fraudulent results with the typo URL. This activity allows fraudsters to obtain credit for a visit to the brand’s website by stuffing cookies through the fraudulent webpage on the visitor’s browser. ● Transaction Fraud Transaction fraud involves using information from a stolen credit card to purchase a brand’s products/services. It causes credit card chargebacks, steals ad revenue, and

What to Look for in Your Affiliate Campaign? Read More »

reseller-fraud

Reseller Fraud Is Costing You More Than Just Your Ad Budget – Know Why?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Ad Traffic Validation /

The pandemic brought a massive shift in the behavior of a shopper. When the entire world was inside their homes, eCommerce brands became the talk of the town. Every retailer wants to be seen online to reach their desired target audience. During this time, the trend of resellers also took a high pace. A reseller is a person who buys the product in bulk from a wholesaler or retailer and sells it to their own audience usually at a profit. Reselling became a popular option for people for its seamless process and no upfront investment requirement. However, seeing an industry growing the fraudsters also don’t take a setback. Reseller Fraud in The Rise There have been some cases where the resellers are found to be using the discounts the wholesalers provide for the customers on online purchases. The reseller avails these D2C discounts which an end customer is only eligible to make bulk purchases online, instead of buying from the wholesaler. This eventually ruptures the retail chain of the advertiser. The reseller abuses these discounts by employing bots and buys the product from the retailer in bulk at a lower price. Later they resell them at a higher margin to gain benefits and increase their revenue. Real Case: One of the Leading FMCG Brands The brand launched a program for one of its most demanding products. They planned to offer a discount of 15% off to their users. As the limit was to order only one quantity per order, it was detected that there were multiple orders of the same product in a day We further analyzed and detected: The same users were fraudulently making repeat purchases or purchasing bulk orders using the discounts available for retail consumers. Coupons and vouchers were manipulated and abused using scamming practices. Offers usually only valid for first-time users were used repeatedly by multiple email ids/phone numbers. What Brand Lose Due to Reseller Fraud? Friction in Genuine Users: Due to bulk purchases by resellers, the genuine users see a stock out and lose interest in buying from the brand. And when they see the same product available with a third party selling at an inflated price, it directly impacts the consumer’s loyalty to the brand. The users think that the brand doesn’t care about the consumer’s needs and safety which further impacts the brand’s image. Skewed Analytics: Not just the brand image, but the entire growth of the brand is impacted due to reseller fraud. Due to vigorous reseller activities, the brand doesn’t understand the real demand for the product in the market and how much to invest for scaling. This results in a discrepancy in the supply chain of the retailer. mFilterIt’s Way to Combat Reseller Fraud Resellers commit this fraud as organic users and, in some cases, the orders are placed by traffic coming from paid sources/publishers. As a result, the publisher enjoys the payout on the order placed and the resellers take advantage of high discounts on their purchases and an additional commission from the publisher. At mFilterIt, we use the capabilities of AI, ML, and data science to detect these discrepancies in the order placed. We do a deep check on the traffic sources based on information like: Customer/Delivery addresses Customer mobile number Coupon code used Ordered product information – Popular/Unpopular items Further, with our CRM API, we marked the order statuses as Clean or Fraud in the CRM itself. This eventually gives clarity to the retailer to deliver only clean orders placed by genuine users. Stop The Reseller Abuse Reseller abuse not only costs the marketer its revenue, but it also punishes the loyal consumers. Due to resellers placing bulk orders, the prices inflate, and the consumers have to pay more for the same product. Therefore, taking strict action against the reseller must be a priority for the retailers. To ensure that the consumers and brand image are not impacted due to reseller abuse, the retailers must partner with a holistic ad traffic validation solution. The traffic verification suite must be capable of not only weeding out invalid traffic but also reducing the friction amongst consumers and improving the overall customer experience. Validate and protect your brand from reseller abuse with our advanced solutions. Contact our experts today at [email protected] or +91-981 0310 660.

Reseller Fraud Is Costing You More Than Just Your Ad Budget – Know Why? Read More »

ad-campaign

Good Bots vs Bad Bots: How They Impact Your Ad Campaigns

Leave a Comment / Blog, Ad Traffic Validation /

Hey Siri! What’s the weather like today? And there comes a voice updating you about the weather. But do you know how it happens? It’s the bot army working in the background to provide relevant information to the users. A bot is a software application that automatically performs tasks. However, these bots are being used for both good and bad purposes. Unlike the bad bots which are used for malicious activities, the good bots are an integral part that helps the web to run smoothly. Bad bot traffic now accounts for 65% of all internet traffic. And the number is increasing by 6.2 percent from the previous year. The bad bots imitate the behavior of a legitimate user and make it harder to detect and prevent. They are used by fraudsters to commit ad fraud by misusing and attacking websites, APIs, and mobile apps. Some of the malicious activities performed by the bad bots are web scraping, personal and financial data harvesting, digital ad fraud, spam, transaction fraud, etc. This leads to further wastage of the advertiser’s ad-media budget without getting any relevant traffic. In this blog, we have covered the list of good bots and bad bots. Know how you can detect which type of bot is coming and impacting your ad campaigns. Below are some examples of Good Bots 1. Search Engine Bots Also known as the Crawler Bots, these bots run in the background and move across the internet to crawl websites. These bots help in performing repetitive tasks like indexing the websites for SEO purposes and logging user data. These bots help the internet to run smoothly and help to detect web errors, bugs, and performance issues. Some of the common search engine bots are Google bots and Bing bots. 2. Social Network Bots These bots crawl the URLs shared on social media networks and provide relevant recommendations to users. They also fight spam and create a safe online environment for users. Some of the common social network bots are Facebook crawlers and Pinterest crawlers. 3. Aggregator Bots The aggregator bots are used to crawl the RSS or Atom feeds of websites to create an automatically generated feed as per the user’s interests and preferences. For example, A Facebook mobile app feed fetcher retrieves the website information to view in Facebook’s in-app browser. Other aggregator bot examples are the Android framework bot and Google feed fetcher. 4. Marketing Bots These bots are present in SEO and Content marketing software that crawl websites for organic and paid keywords, backlinks, and amount of traffic. Some of the known marketing bots are SEMrush bot and Ahrefs Bot. 5. Site Monitoring Bots Bots like Uptime Bot, WordPress pingbacks, and the PRTG Network Monitor crawl the websites to detect the overall performance and whether it is working. 6. Voice Engine Bots Bots like Alexa’s crawler and the Apple Bot work similarly to the search engine bots. These bots crawl the websites to provide relevant answers to the questions users ask the voice assistant devices. 7. Copyright Bots These bots are used to search for web content that is potentially been copied. Some of the common cases are copying someone else’s work without giving the right attribution, incorrect use of proprietary content, and illegal uploads. These bots are commonly used in the segment of social media where the original content creation is essential. One of the examples of this is YouTube’s Content ID which is assigned to people who own the copyright. 8. Chatbots Chatbots are programs developed with artificial intelligence (AI) that responds both in voice and text. These programs are designed to replicate natural human speech patterns. These chatbots are designed in such a way that they can answer frequently asked questions, provide customer service, and can also direct prospective customers towards the purchase of a product. Some of the famous chatbots are – AccuWeather, Sephora, Fandango, etc. 9. Entertainment Bots Also known by the names of Art Bots, and Video Game Bots, these types of bots are designed to appear aesthetically pleasing. The video game bots are known to function as characters for us to play as opponents or for practicing and developing skills in a game. Some of the bots are also used for deep learning, making transcripts of speeches, and learning how to speak like a character. For example, TriviaBot, IdleRPG, and PokeMeow Good bots are like working bees that automate the process and help in smoothening the functioning of the web. However, if you spot the good bots in your ad campaigns ensure to report them immediately to your publishers. List of Bad Bots 1. Click Bots This is a type of bot which is programmed to click fraudulently on ads which further manipulates the data of the advertiser. The click bots not only impact the data, but also results in wastage of ad spends because not only the traffic is fake, but it is not even a real human. 2. Imposter Bots These bots pretend to be authentic search engine bots to bypass the security measures. The imposter bots impact the website traffic and cause malicious activities like automated DDoS agents. 3. Scraper Bots Unlike copyright bots, scraper bots are used to steal the content, product catalogs, and even prices on a website for repurposing somewhere else. In this case, the user often remains in the dark and unknown about the whereabouts of their content. 4. Spam Bots This is one of the most common types of bots that disrupt user engagement by distributing unwanted content. These bots hamper the engagement by doing spam comments, spammy ads, unnecessary and unusual website redirects, phishing emails, and initiating negative SEO against competitors. 5. Spy Bots Spy bots are used to extract individual or business data. They crawl a website to steal semi-personal information like email addresses and other sources of communication. This further results in the misuse of users’ data for malicious activities. 6. Zombie Bots Unlike the name, the zombie bots don’t eat humans, but they creep into

Good Bots vs Bad Bots: How They Impact Your Ad Campaigns Read More »

ad-fraud-in-mean-region

Rising Menace of Ad Fraud in the MENA Region

Leave a Comment / Blog, Ad Traffic Validation /

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region digital advertising has recently witnessed widespread adoption, whether from the consumer’s end or by a brand. This has led to the expansion of digital advertising landscape in the region. However, ad fraud is proving to be the major hurdle in the evolving ad landscape. The accelerated adoption has given businesses the much-needed push to grab a large share of their business by reaching to their customers who are now operating online. The digital Ad spend in the MENA region has touched $6,25 billion with 13,6% YoY growth. It’s a faster-growing market, among digital ad spend video ad category dominates at 50% of the total digital investment. Ad Fraud in the MENA Region The MENA digital advertising and marketing ecosystem stood at US$8.11 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach US$17.36 billion by 2029.  In the projected period of 2024-2029, the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13.39%. The growing smartphone and internet penetration is leading to such exponential rise in the digital advertising market. As much as businesses have profited from leveraging digital advertising as a tool to reach out to their potential target audience, they’re often negligent or unaware of a bigger threat looming over their marketing budgets- ad fraud. The menace of Ad fraud is the major roadblock in the growth of the Advertising ecosystem in MENA region. It is eating out their targeted reach to actual customers, decreasing a brand’s ROAS, and costing millions to marketers. The unfortunate truth is that many aspects of digital marketing have been pervaded with fraud The ad-fraud economy is now named one of the biggest markets for organized crime worth a staggering $50 billion. In 2020, digital media accounted for 70% of spending on MENA ad space 2020 whereas online ad fraud has risen by 46% in the MENA region since the beginning of the pandemic. Challenges in combating Ad fraud in the MENA Region This highlights a potent challenge that brands have been reeling under. Brands have a large pool of budgets allocated towards digital spending and it becomes imperative for marketers to ensure that every dollar spent yields returns by maximizing ‘real’ engagement. Fraudulent activities such as click spamming, domain spoofing, and fake installs among others can manipulate the campaign which directly impacts the advertiser’s ability to generate ROI. Fraudsters have an army of bots at their disposal to infiltrate the campaigns and eat away the budgets that otherwise be used to target human users. As the digital world battles this complex phenomenon of ad fraud, there have been constant advancements in technological tools that build solutions to deter these fraudsters masquerading behind digital screens. Today, ad fraud is common across all channels and devices. With more and more sophisticated forms of bot attacks and nefarious criminal activities engulfing the digital campaigns and becoming an evolving threat to the MENA region, mFilterIt takes pride in being a TAG-verified member where our technologies are backed by machine learning technology and advanced algorithms that provide real-time updates that weed out such attacks from the advertising campaigns and ensure that every dollar spent is every dollar earned. TAG is having a significant impact on reducing ad fraud across the world – the USA, key markets in Europe, and many markets in the Asia-Pacific region. This could save companies millions of dollars in advertising spend. Despite knowing that ad fraud is very real, for many in the industry, implementing strategies to combat the issue is an abstract concept. Conclusion Brands must take responsibility for their own online safety – safeguard their precious digital spends from fraudsters who’re waiting to pocket your ad spends and deploy solutions to tackle this ever-evolving issue. A close examination of fraud on real time will help marketers and advertisers optimize conversions, reduce cost, and drive real human engagement. Ad fraud is a menace, and the ecosystem needs to come together to fight this battle as one single entity and simultaneously anticipate where it may arise next. Get in touch with our experts for deeper insights. Reach out to learn more!

Rising Menace of Ad Fraud in the MENA Region Read More »

black-friday-sale

5 Threats to Watch Out for this Black Friday 2021

Leave a Comment / Blog, Ad Traffic Validation /

The 2021 Black Friday is touted to become the largest retail event in the MENA region (the Middle East and North America) with consumers spending as much as $6 billion in online shopping. Research has shown that 65% of purchases will be in the fashion, grocery, and home sectors! Where there is money, there is fraud. This exciting quarter has also presented an opportunity for fraudsters to trick consumers by defrauding them in the smartest ways possible to pocket their spending. Covid19 has further opened doors to online warfare as consumers are now shopping online to avoid crowds therefore, consumers, in their fervor to grab the best deal, don’t take necessary precautions to protect their personal and financial information. Here’s are some threats to look out for before you jump with excitement about grabbing the hottest deal of the Black Friday Sale 2021: 1. Don’t click that link on your mail It’s the season of promotions and sales. Brands woo their customers with mouthwatering deals and unbeatable offers. But is the deal too good to be true? “iPhone 13 pro at 1200 SAR! Click here to grab the deal before the black Friday sale ends” Luring customers with such deals is a fraudsters’ favorite way to trick you into divulging your financial information easily. Such mails are commonly referred to as ‘phishing emails’. These criminals create fake email addresses and fake sites on the pretext of the brand and send emails on their behalf. These links contain malicious content which can harm your device and hijack it. When you click on the link, you’re taken to a fake lookalike website, and as soon as you enter your bank details and other information, voila! You’re hacked! Make sure to identify the sender’s address on the mail and confirm the authenticity of the webpage you land on. 2. Try your luck ‘lucky wheel contest’ This does bring back the nostalgia when as kids the spinning wheel contest gave you butterflies, and the anticipation of winning was the adrenaline rush. But wait, are these contests genuine anymore, especially in the digital world? During Black Friday sales promotions, online contests are run to grab customer attention, but fraudsters leverage it to collect your personal data and empty your bank accounts. Each section of the wheel guarantees a prize, a plasma TV, a smartphone, or maybe a car! Beware! Do not enter such contests which guarantee prizes because that may just be your last! 3. Fake social media messages Another common trick in a fraudster’s scamming hat is defrauding customers by sending out fake messages on social media. Once they get hold of someone’s contact list via WhatsApp or Facebook messenger, they send messages citing that some online store is giving away pre-loaded gift cards. All one has to do is follow the link and enter their personal information to get access to the gift card. Keep your eyes open! These links contain viruses that hack into your device, and they can then commit financial fraud by using your details. 4. Those nasty pop-ups and fake ads Spreading viruses and malware aren’t restricted to phishing emails. They take shapes and forms on the internet in the form of pop-ups and advertisements- generally referred to as malvertising. Such ads send you to web pages that ask for personal data and also infect the device with a wide range of harmful programs- spyware, ransomware, adware, and more. Compromising your device safety and personal data due to ad fraud is not the right way to shop this Black Friday. 5. Fake product delivery Getting your hands on something you’ve been longing for at the best price possible is a dream come true for every shopper. Couple it for free delivery, now that’s how your festival season is made. As happy as one could get, you enter your details, home address, and bank account details on an online store (without a second look at the URL), awaiting your most prized Gucci bag. As the parcel is delivered to you, it suddenly hits you that the product is not genuine but a copy of the brand you purchased! Did you basically end up paying a bomb, even in the sale, to get hold of a fake product? Black Friday sales are marred with fake product deliveries so always ensure that you have the right website with actual customer care support, in case there’s an issue with your product delivery. Luckily, mFilterIt specializes in filtering distrust in the digital ecosystem and adding a layer of trust for the consumers and brands alike with ad-fraud detection and prevention solutions. The evolution of technology has made it possible to weed out such fraudsters from the ecosystem and safeguard your money. It is becoming more important than ever to deploy safety measures in the form of tools and solutions which help maintain the trust between the consumer and the brand. Having said that, enjoy the black Friday sale but keep your eyes open!

5 Threats to Watch Out for this Black Friday 2021 Read More »

Ad_fraud

Ad Fraud Through Domain Spoofing: What and Why Should You Know?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Ad Traffic Validation /

Domain spoofing is a criminal act of impersonating a high-quality platform using a low-quality website to obtain programmatic bids. In Sep 2020, MultiTerra was accused of obtaining a monthly revenue of $1 million by using this malicious method for their ad inventory. The organization is a top-rated ad publisher on mobile and connected TVs or CTVs. The key reason for the attack was high CPMs or ad rates. Botnets generated almost three million daily fake ad requests with an average of fifty impressions per nine premium publishing apps using a single IP impersonating sixteen smartphones. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) declared a loss of $5.8 billion in May 2019 after analyzing 27 billion ad impression results of 50 online ad marketers. However, Juniper Research disagrees with this result and estimated a global loss of $42 billion through ad frauds. Another study suggests that domain spoofing through 404bot ad frauds caused a loss exceeding $15 million in 2018. These figures tremendously affected advertisers, marketers, and publishers. 3 Types of Ad Frauds Involving Domain Spoofing The liability of ad fraud falls directly on the publishers, and they deal by manipulating ad tags. Unfortunately, they are not rewarded for their predicted profits if caught in the act. Moreover, advertisers and marketers encounter major monetary and consumer losses. Some of the most common ad frauds involving domain spoofing are as follows: ● Ad Tag Modification A publisher can promise a constant audience on a high-quality ad space but use sub-par websites in the background by modifying ad tags. The advertisers believe that their results appear from a high-quality platform. Ad tags are used to track the publisher’s ad effectiveness on the company website. ● Ad Injection Another common practice by fraudsters is injecting ads into the end-user browser when they visit specific websites or accidentally click a download button. The malware or infected ads use codes for displaying ads not owned by the publishers. ● Custom Browsers Scammers also engage in websites operational only on custom browsers. They spoof URLs by showing premium platforms to advertisers. The latter conduct transactions without knowing that it is just a disguise. Until 2017, authorization was a concern for websites because fraud rings were operating Hypbot and Methbot. Advertisers lost more than a million dollars yearly because of these scams. They came to a halt after the introduction of the “ads.txt” file. This step taken by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) helped to combat programmatic advertising spoofing by tracking ad inventory. Unfortunately, the problem diminished significantly but remained because advertisers failed to keep track of their inventory and gave rise to the 404bot scammers. The fraudsters used this information to target unaware buyers by spoofing publisher domains. The scheme is named after the 404-page appearance running in the background and appearing as an authorized seller to the advertiser. Domain Spoofing Attack Indicators The easiest method of identifying a domain spoofing attack is by checking the details of URLs. Match the URL against the one generated by the organization and check for discrepancies like misplaced or extra characters. Analytics can help in recognizing such threats to the company. Advertisers, marketers, and publishers can check real domain names through analytics. By doing so, they can check the real-time bidding traffic. Moreover, the analysts can even verify the cost-per-mille (CPM). The latter is commonly referred to as cost-per-thousand (CPT) and used by advertisers as a monetary expenditure indicator for every thousand impressions or views. 3 Methods of Avoiding Ad Campaign Domain Spoofing Domain spoofing drastically affects ad campaign leads and the larger impact falls on the brand reputation. Fortunately, a few methods can help to avoid ad campaign domain and email spoofing: ● Verify Publishers Review the publisher background before making an ad placement bidding by asking for transparency and checking online or offline reviews. Ensure the publisher is not questionable and ask the third party to conduct an online background check before making any transactions. ● Use Ads.txt File Websites that don’t update “ads.txt” file regularly become prone to domain spoofing attacks. Reconciling the same, the “Authorized Digital Sellers” file, owned by the publisher, helps in the management of authorized ad inventory. Comparing information on ads.txt and sellers. SON files help to learn about publisher inventory. The sellers.json file represents ad inventory directly authorized for the sellers. ● Avail the Services of Ad Fraud Detection Company mFilterIt is one of the leading organizations for brand management through mobile and web ad fraud detection and analyzing traffic. The ad fraud suite of the organization weeds out fake traffic ad sources and advertisers have saved 36% on campaigns by using this suite. Conclusion Ad frauds through domain and email spoofing have become like the ongoing COVID-19 virus. It has become crucial to fight against scammers posing as publishers or advertisers to build or maintain brand reputation and customer base.

Ad Fraud Through Domain Spoofing: What and Why Should You Know? Read More »

ad-fraud

How are Ad Fraud Masterminds Cashing in on the Crypto Mania?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Ad Traffic Validation /

Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum If you haven’t invested in them, you must have heard of them! All of it (and more) have become the favorite of many. These currencies are heavily invested in, and cryptocurrency exchanges are helping the mass by facilitating the transaction. Cryptocurrency has attracted more eyeballs than the much-awaited Spanish show ‘Money Heist’ in today’s shared virtual world. A term once the prerogative of the ‘elite’ has now cascaded to the masses. Today, the ecosystem, which once had very thin liquidity, is rife with fraudsters and criminals. The advent of legitimate crypto businesses has enabled get-quick-rich schemes. With more and more people becoming involved in the roaring digital monetary mechanism, the cryptocurrency ecosystem has given birth to a new breed of scammers- the crypto ad fraudsters. Are you of the investors interested in buying a Bitcoin or an altcoin? Have you signed up on an exchange? If yes, you’re doing right. But did you happen to check if the exchange is a legitimate one? Fake Exchanges In one such instance, a cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, BitKRX, was named to establish itself as the legitimate cryptocurrency arm of the trading platform in Korea-Korea Exchange (KRX). Given KRXs legitimacy and goodwill, BitKRX attracted a large pool of investors. People who (thought they) had invested their hard-earned funds via the platform (whoop!!) the money had vanished. “According to a report, 54% of attacks came from threat actors impersonating brands, employees, and executives on social media. Social media became a favorite attack vector, accounting for 47% of all attacks.” Word of Caution for investors: Always sign up on regulated exchanges. These exchanges have a legitimate online presence: social media, website, customer support. But, what if a fake website, fake social media, and fake customer support are all a set-up? Fake/Lookalike Website A well-known exchange runs an online ad to attract more people to its platform. (*Google has recently allowed crypto ads from exchanges based out of the US to advertise on their platform). Fraudsters also run the same campaign only with a minor difference with their landing page, taking advantage of this opportunity. Upon clicking the ad (which you assumed belongs to the fair exchange), it takes you to a similar looking, professionally designed website with matching details, customer support, and even (fake) social media pages. And once you sign up with all your personal information, including your private key, you may wake up to an empty bank account and zero digital assets. The legit crypto exchange will lose its brand equity where it had no role. The fraudsters duped the customers on the pretext of a legit platform! “Congratulations! You’ve won 6.999 BTC in a lucky draw. Access it now.” Read your mail. You check the sender; it says ‘(take any reputable) xchange.com. Excitedly, you click the link, and you’re redirected to a website that asks you to fill out all the personal details so that the currency adds the currency to your account. But, to facilitate the transaction, a certain amount has to be paid as the transfer fee. Fine! You’d do that, 6.999 BTC after all! And you’re done for good, literally! Did you happen to check the domain name? (We mean the spelling!) Phishing, Typosquatting In one such email scam, a specific crypto exchange targeted millions of mail ids with a similar monetary incentive. The mail read that they had won x amount of Bitcoin in a lottery, and the users can access it via a link. For the victim to withdraw the free Bitcoin, they had to add funds to meet the minimum withdrawal criteria! In June 2020, a notable France-based crypto wallet company’s database was hacked. Over 2 lakh mail addresses were put on websites under hacked databases. Fraud capabilities are endless! As an organization, you must constantly look for such scams and fraud, which may harm your reputation and compromise user safety. Fraud can hurt you at all the places you’re presently online and spoil your reputation, irrespective of your industry. What tools are you using to prevent your reputation and ensure Brand Safety while ensuring your user’s trust? Talk to us now!

How are Ad Fraud Masterminds Cashing in on the Crypto Mania? Read More »

trustworthy-affiliate

Are Your Affiliates Trustworthy?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Ad Traffic Validation /

You’re a bank or a brokering organization. It’s that time of the year when you want more and more people to have their bank accounts with you. Or you want more and more people to sign up for a DEMAT account with you. What do you do? Simple! Set up a digital marketing campaign to reach out to your audiences, wherever they are. Look for affiliates who would help to support your ‘sales’. These affiliate marketing strategies help brands increase their sales, visibility, in exchange for a commission when the said objective is increased. It could either be a sales event, a form sign-up event or, in our case an account opening event. The brands maintain an infrastructure for such affiliate marketing program that tracks which affiliate delivered which web users to monitor their credit via an affiliate identifier. When the user clicks on the link provided by the affiliate, there’s a HTTP cookie set in their browser identifying the source though which the user landed on the site. Thus, when the objective of the campaign is fulfilled, which is asking users to sign up for an account with the said bank, the affiliates are rewarded. Simple enough? Absolutely! You spend some amount on these campaigns; on an average one lead acquisition costs around INR 1000. You pay a small commission to these affiliates who would bring customers to you and it’s a win-win situation. You have successfully garnered ‘X’ number of signups with a digital marketing campaign for account opening. But, do not celebrate just yet. You’re yet to be privy to one the biggest scams where all your money spent on these programs might just be a complete waste. mFilterIt got to a task of analyzing the ROAS for a financial institution who ran a campaign for account opening using affiliate marketing strategy. We found out that after spending lakhs of rupees on the campaign, the amount of leads that were acquired were in sync with the amount spend on the advertising. But, it still yielded on result in terms of revenue. How is that possible? Here’s how we figured another affiliate fraud tactic which not only plagues the online world but has now graduated offline. Let’s go back to an era of door-to-door sales. These salesmen convinced the offline user to buy the product, and upon the final purchase, the sales team received their commission. Similarly, what these fraudulent affiliates are doing is that they’re incentivizing their user. They go to random users in the market, ask them to open an account with the bank, and in return they’ll receive ‘x’ amount of money in CASH. Say, an affiliate earns INR 1000 per one account opening, he then incentivizes the user with 200 or 300 in exchange for him to open an account with the said institution. In this case, the end result is justified but post the account opening, there’s no activity which takes place from these accounts. More often than not, the kind of users of who open an account (given the fact that they’re getting INR 300 just to give their information) they have a yearly income of less than 3lakh rupees. Which means that quality of users who’re opening an account with you are not really your target audience. Which also translates into the fact that the amount you’re spending on affiliate marketing program is a complete waste of budget? But how are these fraudsters compensated? The fraudsters share their affiliate link via WhatsApp or mail, therefore when the user clicks on the link from their own device, it is understood that the traffic is diverted through the said affiliate and thus they receive their commission. So when the analytics are deep dived, one can see that the user is real, IP address is real, device is real yet fraud exists. Why? Because these new accounts are as good as dormant accounts and you’re paying people to acquire more such accounts. Ad Fraud detection is way more complex that merely detecting an act of fraud. One needs to analyze a campaign’s success and failures to further understand what helps in maximizing their ROAS. And that’s where we come to your rescue. We’re sure the above case must have piqued your curiosity to finally analyze your campaign’s performance to not only detect fraud but also to analyze ‘such’ ‘non-fraudulent’ activity. Guess who’s a pro at it? Talk to us now!

Are Your Affiliates Trustworthy? Read More »

ad-fraud

Is Ad Fraud Stealing Your Online Customers?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Ad Traffic Validation /

Humans make only 60% of internet traffic The covid19 pandemic left a huge global impact. Industries tumbled, systems collapsed, the market hit an all-time low. People were confined within the four walls of their homes with laptops and smartphones as their entertainment and work needs. Mobile internet usage increased by 67% globally. Being locked down didn’t dampen our appetite for shopping. The Indian eCommerce witnessed a huge surge owing to the pandemic. The eCommerce industry, driven by mobile shopping, is projected to grow 21% annually over the next four years. Clearly, the eCommerce industry has by far been the biggest beneficiary of Covid19. This increase in online activity and ad spending has also led to an exponential increase in ad fraud in the eCommerce industry. Click fraud activity surged by 21% globally from March to May 20. Click fraud can be defined as the fraudulent clicking of PPC adverts (pay per click) to generate fraudulent charges for advertisers. One in every 10 clicks across eCommerce campaigns is found to be fraudulent. Business ads are deliberately being clicked to waste ad budgets. Fraudsters have a long-standing army of bots to disguise as humans and penetrate the campaigns affecting the performance and draining ad budgets. Studies have estimated that businesses lost $35 billion in 2020 on account of ad fraud and the figure is set to swell in 2021. App Install Fraud is another such threat that is looming over the eCommerce industry. There are a plethora of ways it takes place. Fraudsters redirect users to install the app from third-party APK stores thus Play Store statistics do not increase for the advertiser which in turn impacts the brand image and competitive advantage. Despite spending money on install Campaigns, the revenue is pocketed by the fraudsters. Certain app packages at APK stores also contain malicious codes that can alter the app’s behavior and harm the device. Can more damage be done? Fake engagements are being created through the pool of devices to give the impression of legitimate activity, also called Device Farms. Using Click spamming, these fraudsters are generating fake clicks in the background to capture organic app installs. Sophisticated forms of technology are evolving where bots mirror human behavior making it difficult to distinguish real users from fake users! In one such instance, we analyzed a leading online e-commerce portal. an ‘App Install’ campaign It was identified that nearly 55% of the inorganic installs were fraudulent. Deep diving further into fake installs, it was concluded that fraud is an industry menace. Non-play store installs accounted for 42% of the fraudulent activity followed by fake attribution at 25%. The platform had been spending on marketing for creating visibility of their app and had a healthy spend towards this channel but ROI’s with conversions was always a suspect, thus draining the ad budgets. The eCommerce industry is also marred with affiliate marketing fraud where brands pay their publisher partners based on the campaign performance and not the potential. Affiliate marketing has been a marketer’s favorite strategy to increase brand awareness and increase sales. The fraud rate in major partners was discovered to be over 50%. The potential loss of revenue can be gauged with the above figure. A quick shift to eCommerce has brought with it another most serious type of fraud- Account Takeover Fraud. Criminals gain access to genuine accounts by obtaining stolen passwords, personal information and leveraging this information to access eCommerce accounts. This mostly takes place via phishing scams on mails and SMS. Fraudsters disguising as brand representatives share malicious links which help them with users’ personal information. They then get access to the account and can make purchases, initiate fraudulent transactions, and can also lead to stolen identity fraud. All such issues have a negative impact on the brand thus losing reputation and trust amongst its consumers, apart from revenue losses. The digital landscape is ever-expanding along with the evolution in sophisticated technologies. Although traditional brick-and-mortar shops are to exist, eCommerce will be the go-to place for consumers. The criminals are always innovating new ways and techniques to defraud the system and infiltrate the ad ecosystem. ATO (Account Takeover Fraud) is expected to become rampant in the eCommerce space as real-time transaction approvals rise and data breaches increase. There is a strong need to have robust ad fraud prevention tools in place to analyze the transaction data, whether the data is genuine or fraudulent, in real-time. There’s a strong mechanism required to keep validating customers which may otherwise lead to financial fraud, identity theft among others. The new trend of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) trend further opens the door for these criminals to exploit the customers and system. BNPL fraud takes a longer lag time between fraud and fraud detection. The rising eCommerce fraud has brought to light major gaps in the digital ecosystem, where there is money, there will be a fraud. It is imperative to mitigate such threats and have a well-designed solution in place to identify and address all possible types of threat that not only affects a business but also damages its reputation. Online retail owners and platforms should analyze and monitor all relevant transactions at the minutest level to battle the threat. Ad fraud is real! The sooner digested and worked on, the better it will be in the near future. Awareness is the first step followed by a diligent fraud prevention tool in place.

Is Ad Fraud Stealing Your Online Customers? Read More »

Scroll to Top