Google announced a new feature for its ads that automates the filtering of traffic from three ad fraud botnets along with the ones Google is already monitoring and defending against. According to the company, it’s resilient to possible changes to the malware that generates the traffic.
Google says the addition of this feature boosts its defenses against invalid traffic generated by ad fraud malware including Bedep and other malware families that they’ve code-named Beetal and Changthangi. The three botnets combined account for over 500,000 infected computers.
“Botnet traffic is difficult to consistently filter in advertising platforms because malware authors try to make their fraudulent traffic look as human as possible so that it resembles legitimate traffic,” says Andres Ferrate, Chief Advocate for Google Ad Traffic Quality. “For example, botnet traffic has many of the same characteristics as real traffic, including the use of common browsers, and typical user behavior on a web page (e.g., scrolling, clicking, and mouse movement).”
“Our move to consistently and confidently cut out the traffic from these botnets, despite any changes in the malware on which they’re based, represents a significant milestone in the defense of our advertising ecosystem,” Ferrate adds.
In other Google security-related news, the company also announced a couple of new features for Gmail to protect users.
Both announcements come on “Safe Internet Day”.
Images via Google