Network Security News

Bahama botnet eating up ad budgets

Monday, September 21, 2009

Sophisticated scammers are using a group of malware-infected computers to distort search traffic and influence advertising budgets.

Called the "Bahama botnet" due to its initial detection in a series of parked domains in the Bahamas, the botnet differs from others of its type in that it can evade even highly sophisticated detection mechanisms set up by ad networks and search engines. By masking itself as legitimate traffic from U.S. schools and libraries, the Bahama botnet slips past powerful filters undetected.

Click fraud research firm Click Forensics said that it has documented cases in which up to 30 percent of a company's advertising budget has been lost to ersatz clicks. The firm says as well that the Bahama botnet may be responsible for last week's malvertising attacks on the New York Times' website.

Click Forensics' marketing director Scott O'Brien told Forbes magazine that falling click fraud numbers generally are a possible indication that more botnet criminals are becoming as clever as the Bahama botnet. "It's possible they're getting so sophisticated that we're not finding all of them. We hope that's not the case."