Virus Positive Technologies

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Why Should Bot Frauds Keep Marketers Awake At Night?

With more and more companies turning towards automation, there is witnessed a gradual increase in automation tech, like bots to enhance consumers' online experiences.

For any business running online advertising or doing partnerships with affiliates to promote their products and services, affiliate fraud detection is one of the primary concerns. Companies, especially those working with affiliates and in the digital marketing space, have to stay wary about it.

What is a bot?

A bot is a software program designed to carry out specific tasks, repetitive ones. For example, Google uses bots for crawling websites to index them in its search engine listings.

However, not all bots are utilized for specific, good, or legal purposes. Many malicious bots can cause damage to the systems, and these conduct activities like fraud, especially in the marketing space.

How can bots be malicious?

Malicious bots are utilized for spamming, stealing data, faking purchases, compromising websites, hacking, interrupting, and spying. Since bots can bring enormous benefits for companies, knowing the difference between good and bad bots is vital.

Fraud bots or malicious bots are also used for committing ad fraud in affiliate marketing. Advertising structures like PPC are harassed to earn money or commission with fake clicks.

Here are some common and different kinds of malicious bots:

●       Spambots: These bots scrub the internet for email addresses to collect and send unwanted spam emails, along with other junk.

●       Spy bots are specifically dangerous as they can quickly gather data about users without their consent.

●       File-sharing bots: Many malicious bots operate through links in malicious websites or files on social media platforms. Clicking on links or sharing files might cause harm to your data privacy or marketing efforts.

●       Zombie bots are used to create hacked computers to which hackers have access and can control them from anywhere across the world.

●       Chatbots: Chatbots are made for imitating human interaction for acquiring personal data. Fraudsters end up utilizing it for evil purposes.

●       If you have used click ads, you might have run into these click bots. They are crafted for clicking on advertisements without purchasing anything, and they increase the advertising cost by inflating the ad clicks.

 How can bots be malicious?

Affiliate marketing campaigns bring an extensive network of people to assist in a company's growth by adding affiliates. In some cases, merchants create partnerships with affiliates, whereas in others, they use pre-existing affiliate networks' services to build brand consciousness.

By using malicious bots, fraudsters drain money from affiliate programs. Using such bot programs as those mentioned above makes it easy for frauds to steal money from unwary marketers.

Here's how malicious bots affect affiliate marketing campaigns

●       Wastage of advertisement revenue: One of the primary goals of fraudsters who use bots is stealing money from marketing campaigns. This is accomplished by using bots to create false impressions, clicks, or filling of forms on advertisements for tricking companies into paying the fraudsters.

●       Violation of TCPA compliance: TCPA is a law that blocks unrequired communications made from companies to the customers. When fraudsters use stolen data to populate the form field, businesses reach people who don't want to get contacted, leading to TCPA fines.

●       Lawsuits: When many unwanted calls are made to those who don't opt for promotional communications, it can sometimes trigger a class action lawsuit. The legal fees required for defending a class action are exorbitant. Even though the defense is sure to become successful, it is cost-effective to settle it in or out of the court.

●       Hampers the reputation of the company: TCPA rules violations lead to bad publicity, which will hinder the company's reputation. Some of the significant adverse effects are loss of new sales, fewer partnership opportunities, and decreased market share.

So, these are some of the significant impacts of fraud bots on ad campaigns. All we can say is it can cost companies a lot more than what they might have expected for their marketing efforts. Therefore, timely detection is always better because the earlier you recognize the fraud bot and shut it off, the better it is.

Here are a few warning signs of fraud bot in your marketing campaigns:

●       High enhancement in advertisement spending but no significant change when deals are closed.

●       Repeat data for various contacts.

●       Receiving contact information that is not valid.

●       A large number of leads come from the same IP address.

●       Increase in complaints about unwanted marketing messages.

So, what's the correct solution?

The best defense companies can assist in brand protection and customers from all kinds of bad bots engaged in advertisement frauds.

Proper bot management solutions by Virus positive Technologies can easily distinguish lousy bot activity from actual user activity through combined efforts of machine learning and skilled engineers. It assists companies in stopping malicious bots without putting an impact on the user experience.

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What Is Clickjacking? How Do Malicious Affiliates Use It To Earn More Commissions?

Affiliates use different ways to attract traffic for their advertisers, and in the quest of earning more money, they often get tempted to use malicious ways of getting user clicks. Clickjacking attacks rely on visual tricks to get website visitors to click on user interface elements. This article shows how a clickjacking attack works and how to prevent them.

What is Clickjacking?

Clickjacking, also known as user interface redressing, is a malicious technique of hijacking the clickable elements on a website, software application, browser extensions, and other online platforms.

It is a combination of 2 words – Click and Hijacking, simply meaning, it is a method used to trick users into clicking an invisible web page element or disguised as another element.

This is performed by injecting an invisible page or HTML element, inside an iframe, on top of the actual page visible to the user. The user believes they are clicking the visible page, but an invisible component of the additional page is transposed on top of it and deceives the user to unwittingly download malware, visit malicious websites, share personal credentials or sensitive information, financial transactions, or purchase products online.

The most common approach to Clickjacking involves presenting the user with overlaid web pages in the browser window and some reward to click in specified tabs. The attacker starts by loading the vulnerable target website into an iframe, setting it to full transparency, and placing the frame in front of a malicious web page created to elicit clicks in suitable places.

There are many purposes that Clickjacking can serve, and a few are listed below:

●        PPC frauds in affiliate marketing

●        Redirecting to competitor website or software application

●        Malware and Adware distribution (e.g., a virus/Trojan download)

●        Generating fake likes for social media posts (such as on Facebook or Instagram)

●        Third-party access authorization to remotely perform actions on the hijacked system

Types of Clickjacking attacks

The attacks have different names based on the nature of their operation. The most common ones are listed below:

●        Cookie hijacking: Cookie hijacking is the insertion of an affiliate cookie by distributing adware through web browser extensions or software applications. The malicious affiliates hijack the click elements on advertisers' websites and insert their affiliate cookies to monetize the user purchases. They earn without driving traffic for the advertisers and consume the commissions of legitimate affiliates.

●        Cursor jacking: This technique changes the cursor position to a different section from where the user perceives it. The user performs an action they intend to, but the hijacked cursor clicks on another hidden element on the web page. Cursor jacking is a technique of "creating" a lag between where you, a user, seem to click and where they actually click.

●        Like jacking: This type of Clickjacking is performed to increase the likes on social media profiles. The threat actors hijack the click elements and redirect the users to like tabs on Facebook or other social media networks.

●        File jacking: The user allows the attacker to access their local file system and use their personal data for various purposes without their knowledge.

How does it benefit malicious Affiliates?

The affiliate industry works on the model of - Give & Take. There are 3 key players in an affiliate marketing model – the advertiser (brand), the publisher(affiliates) & the buyer(customers).

The advertisers pay commissions to the publishers to drive user traffic, eventually increasing sales.

Affiliates often adopt malicious ways to earn more commissions. One such way is Clickjacking. The affiliates have multiple methods to hijack the clickable elements on web pages or applications to drop their affiliate cookies to earn commissions. Few are mentioned below:

●        Injecting multiple third-party affiliate cookies into the user system/browser

●        Redirecting users to a competitor website or software application

●        Consuming advertising budgets by flooding spam clicks on pay per click ads

●        Distributing malware or adware attacks to access user systems

●        Access users’ personal information like passwords, banking, contact details, and more

How to prevent clickjacking attacks?

Affiliate traps have increased manifolds over the past decade, and with the uplift in the affiliate marketing industry, it is only to grow in the future. Brands are becoming more active in monitoring their affiliate networks and keeping them safe from fraud.

Virus Positive Technologies (VPT) is pioneering the market of Affiliate Fraud Detection and Management & Brand Protection. VPT's disruptive methodology identifies non-compliant behaviors that divert customers to competitor offerings, hurting conversion rates and damaging brand reputation. By eliminating these invasive promotions, VPT consistently recovers advertisers' revenue and brand value; companies can win back more than 90% of their stolen revenue. The world's largest retailers rely on VPT's solutions to eliminate invasive promotions, preserve the online customer experience, and consistently recover advertiser' revenue.