Ad Networks a Digital Paradise for Cyber-Criminals, Reseachers Find
Found on eWEEK on Saturday, 15 November 2014
The research focused on ZeroAccess as perhaps the best known click-fraud botnet. Click fraud uses compromised systems to click on advertisements, earning advertising affiliate fees for the criminals operating the botnet. In their study, the researchers were able to identify 54 ad units, or campaigns, related to ZeroAccess which produced about a million fraudulent clicks per day, with a likely value of $100,000.
Not only that, some ad networks can be abused to exploit users. Especially those which allow embedding HTML and/or Javascript without screening the source before publishing it. Some are even worse and allow iframes, bascially handing over the visitor to a possible attacker.