That certain industries and verticals are more susceptible to the multi-billion dollar threat of ad fraud is already a well-known fact. Indeed, Direct Carrier Billing has been and continues to be a focus of fraudsters worldwide.
We also discovered by analyzing over 466 billion visits in over 200 different territories is that ad fraud has no geographical limitations. Operators, aggregators, and content providers are affected by ad fraud regardless of where their businesses are located.
Moreover, we determined that certain types of ad fraud affect regions differently. The report goes into granular detail about which countries suffer from which types of ad fraud; we analyzed the effect of ad fraud on both a continent and country level in order to ascertain the prevalence of bad bots, malicious code injection, and non-compliant traffic in these countries.
We also established a ranking of the countries most affected by ad fraud worldwide. The top ten countries in the table were:
Switzerland
Netherlands
Germany
Thailand
Ukraine
Pakistan
Malaysia
South Africa
Spain
United States
The dissemination of these countries across all corners of the world shows just how widespread ad fraud is. However, in the report, we were also able to break down each continent on a country-by-country basis to analyze which types of ad fraud were most prevalent in each. Overall, we found that bad bots are the single most important threat across all regions.
Plus, we also analyzed the data we collected to create our own proprietary benchmark of mobile malware apps and packages. Mobile malware is a clear vehicle of fraud. Once malware is installed in devices, fraudsters can trigger massive amounts of traffic, clicks, or leads, and hurt advertisers and agencies.
The top five fraudulent Android Packages (APKs) we found were:
| App or package name | Google Play Store Status | Geos detected | # Of device models infected |
| com.snaptube.premium | Removed/Not published | 233 | +10,000 |
| com.mediatek.factorymode | Removed/Not published | 206 | +100 |
| com.android.fmradio | Removed/Not published | 72 | +10 |
| com.aktham.calculator | Removed/Not published | 201 | +5,000 |
| com.lenovo.anyshare.gps | Published | 168 | +7,000 |
Our report contains a wealth of data for industry stakeholders to help them better understand existing ad fraud threats, and adequately protect themselves in the future. Here’s what else you can discover in the full Opticks Annual Ad Fraud Report 2020 report:
Table of the top 25 countries exposed to ad fraud worldwide
Full breakdowns of country-specific ad fraud exposure across each continent
Our own proprietary benchmark of mobile malware apps and packages
In-depth browser-analysis of susceptibility to types of ad fraud
Further insights and predictions for 2021
Download your free copy of the 2020 Opticks Ad Fraud Report to access the complete data and further insights.
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