In this age of interesting digital theft, publishers and advertisers must be vigilant to combat online security threats by ensuring the security of consumer data
Increasing digital transformation across enterprise, every company needs a CISO CMO collaboration to safeguard consumer data. In this ongoing war against ad threat attacks, the good news is that between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, the rate of ads containing lower-risk malvertising declined from 1.25% in 2018 to 0.07% in 2019. But, the alarming news is that more than 60% of holiday ad threat attacks were much more malicious exploits.
Cybersecurity Must Be a Primary Concern for Digital Marketers
The preparedness should start with an explicit understanding of the threats to strategize for the company’s security accordingly. Ad threat weaponizes the concept of AdTech, distributing Trojans, malware, and other malicious attacks to consumer data. This leads to defrauding the marketers and publishers.
Ad fraud efforts remain focused on criminals to steal advertising revenue from advertisers and publishers, victimizing brands, business, and website owners. While Ad threats refer to attacks that victimize consumers, audiences, users, and citizens who interact with the websites and online applications. Cybercriminals exploit ad tech vendors to run scams, collect sensitive data and distribute malware. And, the ever-tightening regulatory environment around consumer data privacy is pushing the need for marketers to strategize smartly to avoid huge potential fines.
These sophisticated hackers are looking for potential opportunities to exploit, and businesses should be careful about:
- Abuse of a service provider’s code: The bad actor’s abuse service provider code, creating fake accounts with ad networks using the company’s ad tags to deliver exploits onto sites. This is very common as it doesn’t even compromise the target company’s servers.
- Partner exploitation: This refers to the attacks that try to steal information from the checkout and login pages, look for third-party partners on those pages to identify the ones that can be easily compromised. The promo code and all are misused to gain access to user data.
- Code vulnerabilities: In case a company is using a vulnerable third-party library or JavaScript, hackers can quickly identify and exploit the loopholes in the script itself.
- Infecting JavaScript with malicious code: In the case of infected assets like fonts, image files, and ads, the JavaScript being delivered back and forth is used by cybercriminals to hide exploits, for instance, an advertisement image that is infected with a malicious script.
Companies must evaluate security risks regularly and mitigate them across all departments and emerging technologies. Also, it is crucial to review the cybersecurity insurance to ensure the installation of the right controls and mitigators in the firm’s real-time. Businesses need to invest in independent security audits of all third- and fourth-party JavaScript on the site, to manage the security of the codes. An independent security organization will perform unbiased tests to surface any gaps in the overall security model.
How Marketers can Protect Companies from Fraud
While the multiplying threat of ad fraud has long been viewed as the sole responsibility of the marketing teams, but to genuinely bridge the ad threat security gaps, the marketing teams need strong collaboration from the IT security teams. After all, it’s not just the ad revenue or the user experience at stake; the risks are much higher. As bad actors evolve, company executives must continuously reevaluate their practices to ensure they’re always one step ahead.
