CISOs need to focus on cybercrime related to digital advertising, as it is expected to increase in a couple of years.
A new report from TrafficGuard has found that digital advertisement fraud will cost businesses $100 million a day by 2023. Bad news is, this type of fraud is going completely unnoticed and CISOs need to take ad fraud security as seriously as other cybercrimes.
Security leaders need to consider its implications of this type of security, which is the most lucrative form of cybercrime that is ahead of even bank fraud, credit card fraud, and Bitcoins mining.
IDG’s 2020 State of the CIO report had revealed that an average firm now spends 16% of its IT budget on cyber security protection measures. Cyber security leaders who are spending hefty sums for protection are letting ad fraud security go unnoticed and unaddressed. Similar to cyber security, it is vital to prevent ad fraud against external threats like click spam as they are tactically identical to DDoS and SDK spoofing.
“These tactics, among others, are designed to steal ad spend, while also polluting data and impacting advertising performance. Your digital advertising has vulnerabilities, just like your network does, that should be patched to maintain optimal performance”, said Luke Taylor, COO of adtech company TrafficGuard.
C-suite executives have not offered enough directives to address the issue of ad fraud. Also, it has always been in the purview of marketing decision-makers. More stakeholders should be making this a business priority and take necessary measures to solve it.
Ad fraud is currently in a growth phase, and hence it is lucrative for attackers. It should be treated like any other cybercrime, and companies need to think how it will affect the business. Organizations should come up with ways to disrupt the ad fraud security.
The report suggested firms can consider a couple of non-technical solution that includes non-payment for online advertisements via advertising networks, or hold the ad vendor accountable for fraudulent clicks. This will reduce wasted spend from the company and also decrease profits for the attackers.
In the case of technical solutions, companies can start encrypting data on mobile devices and enforce password protection. Moreover, application security tools like DNS Malware Identification are also an excellent option to combat ad fraud security.
Ad fraud security threat shows little sign of disappearing any time soon; hence organizations need to gear up and focus on controlling it.
