What Happens When Malware Infects Your Computer And Creates Thousands Of Fake Clicks

MrGrj · November 21, 2014

Online ad fraud costs advertisers more than $7 million every month, as they pay for digital ads that were never actually seen by humans.

Much of this online ad fraud is created by botnets: armies of PCs infected with malware that generates thousands of fake clicks on ads. The botnet controllers tend to be unethical web publishers that want to ramp up the prices of advertising on their sites by inflating the amount of clicks on their sites.

Ad fraud has a number of drastic consequences. For users, it can significantly slow down their machine. For advertisers, it means they have to pay more to actually generate meaningful results from their online advertising. And for ethical publishers and advertising technology companies, it diminishes trust in the digital advertising industry, which could lead to less spending.

But while the consequences for all those involved are dire, it can be difficult to really understand how ad fraud works in practice.

That’s why fraud detection company Forensiq has created a video to highlight just how quickly a computer infected with malware can start racking up thousands of false ad impressions.