7 Minutes

The biggest names in U.S. media and brand name advertising are losing millions in advertising dollars on a dally basis due to a Russian underground of cyber criminals. This operation in particular targets video ads by producing massive volumes of fraudulent video ads through the misappropriation of various parts of critical Internet infrastructure then targeting premium-advertising space. As revealed by security experts, a new and very successful click fraud, as perpetrated by Russian cyber miscreants, has resulted in the loss of millions of dollars on a day-to-day basis.

Although the lone group of Russian misfits operate out of Russia, they controls that extends far beyond their borders and oceans by controlling malicious web browsers installed on web servers harbored within legitimate data centers located mainly in the U.S. and Netherlands. This global botnet farm tricks advertising networks into believing that real human beings are viewing hundreds upon millions of video ads daily. Methbot’s Russian cyber syndicate controls these data centers by acquiring troves of legitimately owned Internet service provider IP addresses then creating fake documents claiming the rights to using them at which point they given the authority to access video ads through the use of a custom web browser.

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