Fraudlogix Blog

International malvertiser extradited from the Netherlands to face hacking charges in New Jersey

A Ukrainian national, Oleksii Ivanov, was charged with participating in a years-long, international scheme to infect computers with malware through online advertisements (i.e., malvertising) and appeared in Newark federal court after being extradited from the Netherlands. The indictment stems from a scheme operated between 2013 and 2018 and included using fake entities to purchase online ads from advertising companies and ad server platforms. Ivanov and others attempted to profit by selling access to the network of devices they had infected with malware. (US Department of Justice)

Over-the-top (OTT) ad serving has become a hot topic among marketers looking to reach consumers who are increasingly streaming video through connected TVs and cutting ties with traditional cable. The ad tech sector is rushing to provide solutions that will allow advertisers to target this tuned-in audience effectively. And, not surprising based on the digital ad industry’s history, fraud is following the funds into the OTT environment.

AdKernel has partnered with Fraudlogix in an effort to empower its platform users to optimize the quality of their ad traffic by weeding out invalid traffic (IVT), domain spoofing, and sources with low viewability. 

The latest news and views for the Supply-Side and DSP Community.

Zeta Global Buys Sizmek DSP And Rocket Fuel DMP Assets For $36 Million

Sizmek will sell its data management platform, which it acquired with Rocket Fuel, and its demand-side platform to the marketing technology cloud Zeta Global in a deal worth up to $36 million. (AdExchanger)

The latest news and views for the Supply-Side and DSP Community.

Industry reacts to Sizmek's bankruptcy and tries to pinpoint what went wrong

Sizmek's bankruptcy filing has shaken digital ad executives, who regarded the company's ad server business as an important contender to Google's. Digiday interviews several industry executives to see where they think the company went wrong. Meanwhile, Sizmek says it's still open, but other ad servers are plotting to scoop up some of its business. On Tuesday the company confirmed between 30 and 80 layoffs. (Digiday, AdExchanger, and AdWeek)

The latest news and views for the Supply-Side and DSP Community.

IAB releases app-ads.txt

The IAB has released the final version of the app-ads.txt, the in-app equivalent of the ads.txt initiative. The specification lets mobile and OTT app publishers indicate which ad tech vendors are authorized to sell or resell their ad inventory. Programmatic ad buyers can check these files to ensure sellers that claim to offer an app’s inventory are authorized to do so. PubMatic will begin enforcing app-ads.txt for its app publishers May 1. (IAB Tech Lab)

The latest news and views for the Supply-Side and DSP Community.

New adware found in 200 apps on Google Play

In the latest mobile ad fraud scheme, security researchers found mobile adware hidden in hundreds of Android apps, which were downloaded more than 150 million times from Google Play. The malware masqueraded as an ad-serving platform, and unbeknownst to the app developers, would open a backdoor to install additional malware. Once installed, the malware runs though lists of web addresses in the background, serving ads to generate revenue. (TechCrunch)

In September 2018 we began reporting ad fraud statistics for the programmatic ad space based on monthly data we collected. In the Q4 2018 Ad Fraud Report we combined data from October, November and December to create a larger picture of ad fraud in terms of which devices, browsers and operating systems are being used most and how much it's affecting different global regions.

The latest news and views for the Supply-Side and DSP Community.

Amazon's Ad Business May Be Growing Faster Than Thought

Amazon's ad business is again outpacing earlier projections. eMarketer recently increased its estimates for Amazon's U.S. ad revenue for both past and future years. The increase is due partly to third-party data indicating that advertising provides more of Amazon's revenue than was previously thought. (The Wall Street Journal)

The latest news and views for the Supply-Side and DSP Community.

Scammers Targeting ads.txt for Fraud Scheme

Scammers recently found a new workaround for the ads.txt initiative, which was implemented to help thwart domain spoofing. In the scheme, fraudsters are creating fake websites and then opening accounts with approved resellers listed in legitimate publishers' ads.txt files so impressions would appear to be coming from authorized sellers. (The Wall Street Journal)