BERLIN, Aug. 22, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Polygraph, a cybersecurity company specializing in click fraud detection, is warning advertisers to beware of click fraud coming from genuine website visitors.
Click fraud is an online crime which steals billions of dollars from advertisers every year. Criminals create scam websites, and monetize the content by placing genuine adverts on every page. They then generate massive earnings – and huge losses for advertisers – by repeatedly clicking on the ads.
Most click fraud uses bots – software pretending to be human – to produce the fake clicks. However, a small number of corrupt publishers are using genuine internet visitors to inadvertently participate in the crime.
According to Trey Vanes, head of marketing at click fraud protection firm Polygraph, not all click fraud comes from bots.
“We’re currently monitoring a number of shady companies and click fraud gangs who are using real human visitors to generate fake clicks on ads. The way they do this is clever, as it happens seamlessly without the visitors realizing they’re participating in click fraud,” said Vanes.
“The criminals trick genuine internet users into viewing their websites. They do this using a technological sleight of hand, causing their websites to remain invisible, yet appear as if they’ve been fully loaded in the visitors’ browsers.
“The scam websites then run code, generating fake clicks on the ads, making it seem like the clicks…
