What Is a Botnet and How It Enables Ad Fraud
· 1h ago · Originally reported by PPC Land
A botnet is a group of devices infected with malware and controlled remotely by a single operator. These networks are often used to commit ad fraud, sell access to proxies, or launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
Why it matters
Understanding botnets is crucial because they are a major tool for ad fraud, which costs advertisers billions and undermines trust in digital advertising.
Explain it like I’m new here
A botnet is like a puppet master secretly controlling lots of computers to trick advertisers and cause trouble online.
Terms in this story
Botnet
A botnet is a network of computers, phones or smart devices infected with malware and remotely controlled by criminals, often used to generate fake ad impressions and clicks from real consumer devices.
Ad fraud
Ad fraud is the deliberate faking or misrepresenting of ad impressions, clicks, installs or conversions so that someone gets paid for advertising that no real, interested human saw or did.
Go deeper
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