Discovery may have saved advertisers millions in online ad spend.
Anchor Intelligence, provider of click fraud and traffic quality solutions, has announced it has identified and effectively shut down DormRing1, believed to be the largest click-fraud ring ever uncovered. The alleged fraud ring consisted of thousands of publishers who reportedly created Web sites and generated fake ad traffic on these sites with the explicit purpose of defrauding ad networks and advertisers. In just two weeks, DormRing1 traffic was instructed to generate fraudulent clicks on the ads of nearly 2,000 advertisers across multiple ad networks; these clicks originated from approximately 200,000 compromised IP addresses. Anchor estimates DormRing1, if undetected, would have cost the affected advertisers over $3 million in wasted advertising dollars over the course of a year.
Anchor Intelligence has shared its findings with law enforcement on both coasts, including the San Francisco branch of the FBI and the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance (NCFTA) out of Pittsburgh, PA. The NCFTA, a joint partnership between law enforcement, academia, and industry, which seeks to maximize public/private resource synergies to address cyber-crime, was recently applauded by President Obama in the “White House 2009 Cyberspace Policy Review.”
“We’ve worked with the Anchor team on several occasions to better understand the tactics used by online perpetrators,” says Ron Plesco, president and CEO of the NCFTA. “Anchor Intelligence’s innovative and instructive work in the area of click-fraud detection and ad-traffic monitoring has been extremely valuable in our collaborations to investigate cyber criminals.”
“DormRing1” received its name as many of the perpetrators involved allegedly were students operating out of dormitories at Shanghai Technology Institute and other Chinese technical universities. Working in conjunction with one of its ad network customers, Anchor Intelligence tracked the operations of DormRing1 masterminds by gaining access to exclusive bulletin boards on various Chinese social networking sites. Anchor learned about the various tactics used by this ring and was able to link many of the publisher sites to students living in dormitories on campus.
“Click fraud rings are active across the Internet and constantly evolving their tactics while trolling for vulnerable networks and advertisers,” concluded Ken Miller, CEO of Anchor Intelligence. “Every buyer or seller of online advertising that uses the Anchor ClearMark system becomes an instant winner in the battle against bad actors," he said. "Rather than fighting the arms race against the fraudsters alone, Anchor customers have chosen to leverage the collective intelligence of our network to develop a super-strong line of defense against these rings.”
Anchor Intelligence has identified and eliminated over 200 click fraud rings involving at least five million distinct IP addresses with the help of its partners and clients. By identifying suspicious overlaps in audience segments and behaviors across its network, Anchor Intelligence uncovers new click fraud rings and applies its insights to its entire customer base. Fraudulent publishers are removed from a network’s system before ad fraud can impact advertisers.
Anchor Intelligence indicates that while DormRing1 was shut down similarly architected rings have emerged out of India and parts of Southeast Asia.
About Anchor Intelligence
Anchor Intelligence Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, CA, is the traffic quality solutions provider of choice among ad networks, search engines, and advertisers from across the globe. Using Anchor Intelligence's ClearMark, the industry's first and only real-time traffic scoring system, industry players obtain the necessary intelligence to fight click and impression fraud, efficiently manage traffic sources, and capitalize on high quality clicks while maximizing advertiser ROI. For more information, visit: www.anchorintelligence.com. Follow us on Twitter: @AnchorIntel.
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