> spider.io has observed the Chameleon botnet targeting a cluster of at least 202 websites. 14 billion ad impressions are served across these 202 websites per month. The botnet accounts for at least 9 billion of these ad impressions.
The odd thing is that either these sites are already very big, or there are others ways they are getting 5 billion ad impressions.
A list of these 202 websites would be informative. I guess a number of them could be fake, to throw the scent off?
Perhaps a coincidence, but this AdWeek report[1] flags a number of "ghost sites" that offer huge volume of impressions for sale on the exchanges and have real advertisers but don't seem to have any actual human beings present. One site in particular they mention usbuildingdigest.com has a very large number of DSP and other data integrations[2]. Suggestive to say the least. A number of other sites are mentioned in the AdWeek report.
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Well that leaves the real questions: what sites were the bots clicking ads on, who owns those sites and which ad networks were they using?
> spider.io has observed the Chameleon botnet targeting a cluster of at least 202 websites. 14 billion ad impressions are served across these 202 websites per month. The botnet accounts for at least 9 billion of these ad impressions.
The odd thing is that either these sites are already very big, or there are others ways they are getting 5 billion ad impressions.
A list of these 202 websites would be informative. I guess a number of them could be fake, to throw the scent off?
Perhaps a coincidence, but this AdWeek report[1] flags a number of "ghost sites" that offer huge volume of impressions for sale on the exchanges and have real advertisers but don't seem to have any actual human beings present. One site in particular they mention usbuildingdigest.com has a very large number of DSP and other data integrations[2]. Suggestive to say the least. A number of other sites are mentioned in the AdWeek report.
[1] http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/meet-most-suspect-publ... [2] http://imgur.com/WHxmmHo
This list of sites will change in 60 days. This sites are like pop-up store fronts for ads.