Using a technique called ad spoofing, a publisher or mobile advertising platform may modify the app headers passed to the exchange to represent the inventory as a different app. Wickr and BBM were two apps, according to Forensiq, that fell victim to the ploy. These clandestinely-run ads in mobile apps not only slow down smartphones, but also fleece marketers.
Forensiq predicts more than $1 billion in ad money could be wasted on in-app fraud by the end of this year. Many of them are simplegames or utilities, and they seem to have real users.
Forensiq founder and CEO David Sendroff said: “It’s not mad Birds or Candy Crush, but these are apps that people play and enjoy and some real effort went into developing”.
Using both an emulator and manually sitting with devices clicking on apps in app stores, data scientists from Forensiq downloaded a total of 35,243 apps to see whether the apps presented any malicious behaviours. One review, posted by someone describing herself as “Annoyed and Frustrated Mommy”, expressed mixed feelings about the product.
The scam works by playing unseen ads in the background of the phone – advertisers then get charged even though their ad has never been seen. “Unfortunately it’s too late for me to switch apps because all my info is wrapped up in this one”. Also surprising was that the fraud involved the serving of ads that are invisible to humans for “literally hundreds of recognizable brands”, including Microsoft, Unilever, Amazon and Mercedes-Benz.
Researchers have discovered that thousands of apps in the app stores for Apple, Android, and Windows Phone are running a highly sophisticated and potentially harmful form of advertising fraud. While they do screen apps to ensure it adheres to the guidelines, they’d basically have to keep monitoring its bandwidth usage over time to determine if the app might have incorporated invisible apps, something that isn’t very efficient/feasible. Despite the vetting process for apps places like Apple’s App Store and Google Play, offending apps can still slip through the cracks.
The main limiting factor for this particular flavor of ad fraud may be economic.
Forensiq captured hundreds of hours of data from more than 12 million devices which had installed apps flagged for ad fraud.
Projected loss to advertisers as a result of mobile device hijacking.
According to the report the fraud is costing advertisers over $850 million (£510 million) and can eat through as much as 2GB of user’s data every day.
That said, the risk in ad fraud is also much lower.
