Security News > 2020 > February > Hacker Scheme Threatens AdSense Customers with Account Suspension

A new e-mail based extortion attack threatens users of Google's AdSense banner-ad program with creating online behavior that will warrant them an account suspension-perhaps a permanent one-from Google if they don't pay the attackers in bitcoin.

The scam-revealed in a post by security writer and researcher Brian Krebs on his blog KrebsOnSecurity-demands $5,000 worth of the cryptocurrency in return "For a promise not to flood the publisher's ads with so much bot and junk traffic that Google's automated anti-fraud systems suspend the user's AdSense account," Krebs wrote in a blog post.

AdSense is a program that website publishers use to serve targeted banner ads to their audiences, with Google providing ad administration, sorting and maintenance.

The message goes on to threaten the reader with a vow to flood his or her site with a "Huge amount of direct bot generated web traffic with 100% bounce ratio and thousands of IP's in rotation-a nightmare for every AdSense publisher," according to the post.

The company recently said it is enhancing its AdSense defenses by improving the systems that identify potentially invalid traffic-which the company defines as "Clicks or impressions generated by publishers clicking their own live ads," as well as "Automated clicking tools or traffic sources"-or other high-risk activities before ads are served, Krebs noted in his post.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/hacker-scheme-threatens-adsense-customers-with-account-suspension/152943/