This week, White Ops announced the discovery of Methbot, a large botnet fraud operation that has generated $3 million to $5 million per day in fraudulent digital ad revenue since October.
After conducting an analysis of our exchange we have determined that there was no material impact on our partners. To further protect our partners, we have proactively blocked all IP addresses belonging to compromised servers from accessing the OpenX Ad Exchange. Our ability to defend our exchange from one of the largest ad fraud operations is due to the vigilance of the anti-fraud systems we have in place.
OpenX has been an industry leader in fighting fraud for nearly 7 years since introducing the first generation of our Traffic Quality platform in 2012. Our platform has proven highly effective at eliminating all forms of invalid traffic by combining rigorous human review with automated real-time filtering of all traffic. We supplement these internal capabilities with post-impression verification data from Integral Ad Science, Moat, and WhiteOps.
Earlier this month, OpenX was one of just 16 companies awarded the “Certified Against Fraud” Seal from the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), an advertising industry initiative created to fight criminal activity in the digital advertising supply chain. We’ve also consistently ranked first in overall quality for mobile, desktop and international inventory on Pixalate’s Global Seller Trust Index, solidifying our position as the top source of high-quality inventory across all formats and regions.
Methbot is not the first case of widespread ad fraud and it won’t be the last.
The exposure of this botnet shows how attacks on the integrity of digital advertising are growing increasingly sophisticated and costly. That is why we are fully committed to the health and merit of our exchange and are constantly implementing advanced traffic fraud measures to combat this type of threat.
As a result, our partners can rest assured knowing that their inventory is protected and that their ads are reaching their targeted audience.