Secret Unit Google Fights Against Botnets And Click Fraud

Google has a secret unit of over a hundred people who are working every day with combating botnets click and ad commit fraud. The botnets generate traffic and clicks for ads and would advertisers and advertising platforms billions of euros.

Google is the largest ad provider on the Internet ad fraud and therefore constitutes a serious risk to giant internal. A risk is increasing. "We are at a point which malware is being used mainly for advertising fraud," says Douglas Hunter Google versus Ad Age . The website received a unique insight into the workings of the secret unit, whose existence has not been made ​​public by Google.

Malware

To combat fraud, the ad team analyzes all kinds of malware, which include Google through the online virus scan service VirusTotal receives. By analyzing the malware a click fraud botnet can be mapped. Then look at the traffic that generates the malware. Traffic which malware authors try to make it look as human as possible.

In the Google case "non-human" traffic will encounter the publisher ads showing not paid and the advertiser is no fee will be charged. By now inspire to step outside Google hopes other companies to share their findings and to tackle together ad fraud."Our job is to increase the cost for the fraudsters to a point that advertising fraud no longer interesting for them," concludes De Jager.