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from the at-least-someone-likes-the-advertisers dept.
Here's the Seattle Times with a syndicated NY Times article, http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/russian-cybergang-ring-scored-millions-in-giant-ad-fraud/
Researchers say that a Russian cyber-forgery ring has created more than half a million fake internet users and 250,000 fake websites to trick advertisers into collectively paying as much as $5 million a day for video ads that are never watched.
The fraud, which began in September and is still going on, represents a new level of sophistication among criminals who seek to profit by using bots — computer programs that pretend to be people — to cheat advertisers.
"We think that nothing has approached this operation in terms of profitability," said Michael Tiffany, a founder and the chief executive of White Ops, the ad-focused computer security firm that publicly disclosed the fraud in a report Tuesday. "Our adversaries are bringing whole new levels of innovation to ad fraud."
The thieves impersonated more than 6,100 news and content publishers, stealing advertising revenue that marketers intended to run on those sites, White Ops said. The scheme exploited known flaws in digital advertising, including the lack of a consistent, reliable method for tracking ads and ensuring that they are shown to the promised audience.
The spoofed outlets include a who's who of the web: video-laden sites like Fox News and CBS Sports, large news organizations like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, major content platforms like Facebook and Yahoo and niche sites like Allrecipes.com and AccuWeather. Although the main targets were in the United States, news organizations in other countries were also affected.
$5 mil/day is enough to support a pretty good sized team, I wonder how big the scamming operation is?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @03:13PM
It is only a scam.
Russian Scam Claimed to Net $5 Million Per Day
I find the use of words insinuating. It is not a "Russian scam". It is some gang of scammers that happens to live inside Russia (if we are to believe the "security" people). If found, I'm sure they will face punishment from the local government and shut down permanently.
The advertisers on the other hand will continue to scam the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @04:59PM
If they lived in Colombia, we'd call it a Colombian scam. What's your problem?
Over the years I've seen a lot of investment scams that were based in the LA area--typically "inventors" looking for angel investment from gullible dentists (etc). Somehow they always seem to need "one more round" of money to bring the product to market. I've always called these California scams.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @05:12PM
It's war! Patriotic Americans will have to step up and view more advertisements so that capitalism will win. Do your part!
(Score: 4, Funny) by digitalaudiorock on Sunday December 25 2016, @07:18PM
Donald? Is that you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @07:43PM
Mind-control and subliminally telling people about some "Russian bad guy" so it goes into the back of the minds of people when (((they))) want to start the actual war. That is their plan. We need defense.
Interestingly, there is a well-written piece today on RT about Person of the Year 2016: The Russian Hacker [rt.com].
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Monday December 26 2016, @03:13PM
Seriously? Some fucking AC gets upset when a scam that originated in Russia is called a "Russian" scam...because they remember that they're not supposed to believe any hacking originates in Russia...and someone mods this as troll?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday December 26 2016, @03:48AM
If found, I'm sure they will face punishment from the local government and shut down permanently.
What ever gave you that crazy idea?
As long as they don't do anything to defraud the Russian government, or any companies connected to it, they're free to do whatever they want online. The Russian government doesn't give two shits about some advertising corporations in the US losing $5M/day, in fact they'd laugh and be happy about it, because this helps the Russian economy by moving money there. And in case you've forgotten, Russia does not extradite people for crimes committed outside Russia, which is why Snowden is safe there as long as he doesn't irk the government. And this is why online "criminals" are safe in Russia; as long as they don't break Russian laws, they have nothing to worry about, unlike criminals in other countries where they might be extradited. (I use quotes around "criminals" because what they're doing isn't actually a crime, therefore they're not criminals. They may seem to be defrauding American companies, but that's not a crime in Russia, so by definition, they're not criminals, any more than an American in America is a "criminal" for insulting the Thai monarch.)