A few days ago, a cybersecurity firm named Human Security has explained how hackers went about setting up a huge advertising scam. According to experts, 11 million smartphones would have been used to attack more than 100 sellers of advertising space. How did they do it? Is your smartphone affected? All the answers are in this article.
A large-scale scam called Vastflux
This large-scale scam has been dubbed Vastflux. Led by a collective of anonymous hackers, it was the subject of a long investigation which enabled Human Security to understand how the fraudsters went about it. The firm speaks of a huge scam. It must be said that more than ten million smartphones have served as gateways for hackers. Imagine the number of advertisements generated, Human Security estimated 12 billion queries every day.
Vastflux, it’s one process at a time simple and efficient. His goal: to win the auction to obtain advertising space. And the return on investment is more than quick. Indeed, the result is to embed malicious JavaScript code in the advertising content. Thus, the advertisement made hides more than 20 videos.
A very profitable fraud for this collective of anonymous hackers
In the end, those who set up this scam were paid not for an advertisement, but much more! And these fake ads have paid off especially since they have appeared on over 1,500 apps. In total, Human Security counted 120 duped advertising agencies.
“It is clear that the hackers were well organized and went to great lengths to avoid detection, ensuring the attack lasted as long as possible. making so much money as possible “ the firm said. Fortunately since the revelation of this large-scale scam, Vastflux would not have made other victims.
Have the owners of the affected iPhones noticed anything?
According to Human Security, most of the smartphones used as gateways are iPhones. Android smartphones were only slightly targeted. Naturally, the owners of these cell phones do not know about this. After all, they were not victims of this scam, but only intermediaries in spite of themselves.
Nevertheless, some signs were still observed. Human Security mentioned the battery of smartphones. It was able to empty much faster than usual when the smartphone displayed a fake advertisement. This seems logical since a single content actually contained more than twenty. The firm has also seen a spontaneous increase in data consumption.
Anyway, when the cybersecurity firm completed its report on the process of this huge scam, she took all the measures ways to prevent hackers from continuing their fraud more than profitable. While there are more and more fraudsters on the Internet, the schemes are generally not as elaborate. Human Security has made it clear, the numbers are impressive!
