A prolific CTV ad fraud program called “Smoke Screen” has been suppressed by a software company in New York. The SmokeScreen scam allowed screen savers to hijack CTV devices and generate impressions even when the screen was off.
The malware was delivered through a malicious screensaver application and used forged data to generate impressions. The end user does not know that SmokeScreen is running on the device, even if a regular hijacked device produces three times as many impression volumes as a legitimate device.
This scheme was identified by the software platform DoubleVerify (DV) and SmokeScreen was disabled.
DV said efforts to neutralize SmokeScreen would help clients and partners avoid wasting investments, but the scheme, which generates over 300 million ad requests over US $ 6 million per month, Warned that it remains active on approximately 10,000 unprotected devices.
Mark Zagorski, CEO of Double Verify, said: Protecting the brands we offer is our number one priority as it directly affects the effectiveness of our advertising. Fraud compromises inventory quality, which results in sub-optimal business outcomes for global advertisers. Through Fraud Lab’s extraordinary efforts, DV provides CTV advertisers with the long-awaited transparency and protection while helping to maintain the monetization opportunities of quality publishers. “
Roy Rosenfeld, head of the DV fraud lab, said: “CTV advertising scams don’t just affect advertisers. Sucking revenue from high-quality CTV publishers, app developers, and streaming platforms is harmful to the entire ecosystem.”
Source Illinois News Today