Botnet involved in click fraud scam shut down
June 15, 2006
The botnet responsible for clicking on ads in a huge click fraud scam has now been disabled a month after it was reported, according to Panda Software.
The network comprised over 50,000 zombie computers infected by Clickbot.A, which could be controlled remotely
A joint effort between RSA Security, the expert in protecting online identities and digital assets, and Panda Software, has once again resulted in the detection and neutralization of a sophisticated online fraud attack.
What the story doesn’t report is what was discovered on the publisher network side of things, and whether they were able to identify the fraudulent clicks to refund advertisers and suspend publishers involved in the scheme. ClickZ notes that Pandia didn’t name names of networks who were being targeted, but just due to the sheer volume of publishers in Google AdSense compared to numbers of publishers in the Yahoo Publisher Network, it is very likely that Google was the most greatly affected by Clickbot.A.
Posted in Google AdSense
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June 15th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
Maybe that’s why my revenues have plummeted recently!
Ah, now I remember: they probably wouldn’t set a botnet against my site to make me more money. Oh well.
June 16th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
I wonder if whoever was directing the bots targeted other publishers to get them banned??? Wouldn’t surprise me…