An ad fraud operation threatening the online advertising ecosystem has been taken down by an alliance featuring the FBI and Google. The takedown of a Russian company that was accused of running what it called “information warfare” operations against American political campaigns came as part of an effort to combat foreign influence on social media platforms. Google stressed patience was required to stop it permanently. After a working group of 16 organisations concluded necessary observations, they halted 3ve’s traffic within 18 hours. Three of eight men charged have so far been arrested, marking one of the first cases in which ad-fraud perpetrators have been prosecuted so severely.
An ad fraud operation threatening the online advertising ecosystem has been taken down by an alliance featuring the FBI and Google. Called “3ve”, the scheme saw 5,000 counterfeit websites created and almost two million devices hijacked via a botnet and malware campaign, initially discovered in 2016. Google stressed patience was required to stop it permanently. After a working group of 16 organisations concluded necessary observations, they halted 3ve’s traffic within 18 hours. Three of eight men charged have so far been arrested, marking one of the first cases in which ad-fraud perpetrators have been prosecuted so severely.