Word of the Day: click fraud

Word of the Day Daily updates on the latest technology terms |January 22, 2017

click fraud Click fraud is the practice of artificially inflating traffic statistics for online advertisements. In the common pay-per-click advertising model, advertisers pay a fee for each click on their ad, anticipating that they have attracted a potential customer. By using automated clicking programs (called hitbots), the perpetrators of click freud create the illusion that a large number of potential customers are clicking the advertiser's links, when in fact there is no likelihood that any of the clicks will lead to profit for the advertiser. Click fraud scammers often take advantage of the affiliate programs offered by Web sites, such as Google. The scammer signs up for an affiliate program, agreeing to provide exposure to an advertisement in order to receive a portion of the pay-per-click fees the advertiser is paying the affiliate. Instead of placing the as on legitimate websites, the scammer might place the ad on Web sites created solely for the purpose of placing the ad. And a site like that, quite naturally, will not have any real, organic traffic. Once the ads are in place, the hitbots generate large volumes of fraudulent clicks, often in a very short time period, for which the scammer bills the owner of the affiliate program. Quote of the Day "Ad fraud botnets are being used to inflate the web views all across the internet. It looks as if there is more browsing happening than there actually is." - Michael Tiffany   Related Terms and Tags RELATED TERMS click farm phishing ransomware botnet malvertisement RELATED TAGS Malware, viruses, trojans and spyware Web application and Web 2.0 threats   Learning Center How ad fraud botnets are costing companies billions of dollars Michael Tiffany of White Ops talks with SearchSecurity about how ad fraud botnets are spreading and costing companies billions of dollars a year. Click fraud to ransomware: Study highlights dangers of malware lifecycle New research puts the malware lifecycle in the spotlight, explaining how a click fraud malware transformed into ransomware in less than two hours. Is click fraud malware hiding bigger potential threats? Simple click fraud malware can be easily changed into more dangerous ransomware. Here's how to assess the potential of low-level threats. How does the HummingBad malware enable click fraud? The HummingBad malware has been used to generate click fraud revenue from 10 million infected devices worldwide. Find out how the malware works. Machine versus the bots: Does your website pass the Turing 2.0 test? Robert Richardson questions whether computers can detect the bots vs. real users, as security tools use browser behavior and polymorphism to protect against data theft and fraud. Stay In Touch FOLLOW US CONTACT AN EDITOR For feedback about any of our articles or to send us your article ideas, please contact us at: mrouse@techtarget.com About This E-Newsletter This e-newsletter is published by the TechTarget network. To unsubscribe from Whatis.com, click here. Please note, this will not affect any other subscriptions you have signed up for. TechTarget, Whatis, 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466. Contact: webmaster@techtarget.com Copyright 2016 TechTarget. All rights reserved.