Google in association with the US law enforcement agency FBI has busted a major AD fraud campaign which is reported to have hacked over 2 million devices so far. It’s said that the scam led the hackers to over $36 million earnings from advertising.
Cybersecurity Insiders has learned that the search giant indicted charges against 8 people for running ‘3ve’ and ‘Methbot’ Operations in which the former is said to have infected over 2 million devices, and siphoned off an alleged $29 million. On the other hand, Methboth which was shut down in 2016 is said to have earned scammers about $7 million.
The 13- count indictment which was opened on Tuesday says that the defendants listed with the charges are from Russia and Kazakhstan, while 5 other prime suspects are on run.
According to the indictment the charges levied against the 8 people are money laundering, computer network interception, hacking, wire fraud and identity theft of high level.
More details are awaited!
Note 1- The developers of 3ve were in a hope to siphon off $250 billion from the ad world. But as most of their operations turned futile they could only gain $29 m in earnings.
Note 2- Over one million IPs from home and corporate networks were said to be under control of 3ve operations-mainly from Europe and North America. The scammers went to great lengths in using bots to craft real web activity by having them open web pages and videos. This has resulted in ad earnings for them via fake clicks.
Note 3- 3ve was found to be operating till July’18 while Methbot was shut down in dec’16.
