FM Scam: Audio Advertising at Risk

  • FM Scam is a complex attack that creates fraudulent audio ad listens through fake servers. Fraudsters forge traffic by mimicking human behavior and evading detection.
  • The scheme involves the use of spoofing various devices and players, allowing it to masquerade as normal traffic. FM Scam generates up to 100 million requests per month.
  • The FM Scam and BeatSting schemes inflict significant damage to the industry, exceeding $1 million per month.

DoubleVerify recently reported on a new type of fraud in the audio advertising sphere, dubbed FM Scam. This attack, identified by DoubleVerify's Fraud Lab, creates and disguises audio traffic from various devices, including mobile phones, tablets, smart watches, and speakers. Fraudsters spoof devices to create the appearance of normal traffic, significantly complicating detection.

FM Scam uses dedicated servers to generate audio traffic. The scheme involves selling fraudulent traffic through auctions in #SSP and other channels. According to DoubleVerify, fraudsters behind this scheme have spoofed over 500,000 devices.

DoubleVerify's technology, combining #AI and human oversight, has enabled the detection and neutralization of FM Scam activity, interrupting new variants of the scheme as they emerge. This has been possible through traffic analysis and the identification of IP addresses associated with previous attacks and various types of fraud, including the spread of malware.

In addition to technical aspects, FM Scam is characterized by its ability to create prolonged, continuous listening sessions, making the traffic more "human-like" and harder to detect by standard security systems. This differs from previous schemes where fraudsters switched between devices after generating a certain number of impressions.

Jack Smith, Director of Innovation at DoubleVerify, emphasizes that audio content is becoming an increasingly attractive target for #fraudsters due to increased advertising investments and the lack of comprehensive measurement standards in this area. According to him, the presence of diverse devices and platforms for streaming audio content creates unique conditions that fraudsters aim to exploit.

For Publishers

Despite the small penetration of audio advertising, investments in this segment are growing, even in Russia. If fraudsters are paying attention to it, perhaps it's time for you to do so as well?

Forecast

Budgets for the #audio segment will continue to grow worldwide. Therefore, increasingly complex fraud schemes can be expected. This requires the advertising industry not only to react to current threats but also to anticipate future challenges through innovation and improving security standards. And products dealing with such threats will emerge.

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