Botnets Used for Click Fraud
Posted June 17, 2008
Apparently hackers are stringing together botnets of zombie computers not to just blast spam, anymore, but to commit click fraud. The New York Times reports on botnets used for click fraud:
“The bane of online advertisers is click fraud, in which people or computers click on ads solely to generate a payment…
Click Forensics, a firm that analyzes traffic on behalf of advertisers and ad networks, found a more-than-twofold increase over the last year in the percentage of click fraud that originates from botnets — vast networks of unwittingly compromised computers, most commonly associated with spam. The computers are yoked together and then used to commit Internet crimes.”
And you thought your computer was only good for visiting YouPorn.com and sending dirty emails.
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