Dev/Con Detect, one of the ad fraud detection companies, is a cybersecurity startup that has recently announced their software that will get rid of fraudulent online ads. The software is a patent-protected, proprietary work of the company that repairs, detects and even monitors the technical vulnerabilities of ad-supported digital media.
Fraudulent Ads are Rampant
Whenever people go online, they are bound to run into a popup or popunder ad. People usually just close the ad and carry on until another ad appears. However, what people don’t realize is that some of the ads that they see are fraudulent and are simply a means to funnel money to cyber criminals.
Maggie Louie is the CEO and co-founder of Dev/Con Detect and states that advertising fraud is a form of money laundering tactic. According to her, there are plenty of ways wherein cyber criminals and hackers can exploit online ads and use it to steal, create, and even launder fraud revenue. They pay a very small amount to get their targeted ads to people and various websites. These ads then deploy malicious code on the sites that run them which leaves bogus ads. The reason this gets through is because there is little to no identification needed for companies to place ads.
How Dev/Con Approaches the Problem
This ad fraud has brought to light a very big problem that companies need to think about because cybersecurity is a major business problem.
Borrell Associates is a Virginia-based digital ads consultation firm and they published a report regarding the problem of ad fraud. According to them, it has affected both big and small local publishers and has already led to a huge loss. The $8 billion fraud in 2016 will possibly rise to $11 billion in 2018.
Dev/Con Detect’s software helps both website owner and the users that visit the websites by ensuring that the ads running on the site are free from criminal activity or malicious code. They also put a stop to all those annoying popups. Generally, both the owners and the users of the site find these annoying and distracting. However, the admin of the site has no control over these ads as they are embedded into the code of the malicious ads.
The software also emphasizes transparency so that the owner will be able to know how each network is monetized. This gives the site owner subsequent control over every sub-partner that the ad network is working with to ensure that they are getting their money’s worth.
The Problem of Cybersecurity
Nowadays, everything relies on computers and the internet. The data that is being relayed from one network to another is more than just a name and transaction info as these contain a lot more sensitive information such as credit card details and the like. In fact, 80% of Australian CEOs believe that cybersecurity is one of the risk areas that should be addressed by a company. This isn’t surprising as according to a recent cyber security report by Telstra, nearly 59% of Asian organization suffer from a business-halting security breach at least once a month.
The more companies become more digitized and high-tech, the more prone they are to cyber security breaches and attacks. Therefore, it is important to note that cyber security isn’t just a simple one time setup, as hackers are work faster and are getting smarter. This means that businesses too should adapt and evolve to combat the threat.
