Indosat’s Anti-Spam and Anti-Scam capability has stopped hundreds of millions of digital fraud attempts

Amid rising digital crime and the increasing volume of harmful spam calls and messages, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (Indosat) has reinforced its commitment to safeguarding customers through the integration of AI across its network. 

Since its launch on 7 August 2025, Indosat’s Anti-Spam and Anti-Scam feature has blocked over 200 M risky calls, alerted users to more than 90 million suspicious messages, and protected an average of 11.5 M customers per month from potential digital fraud.

This innovation forms part of Indosat’s AIvolusi5G journey, a synergy between AI and 5G network capabilities, designed to deliver a digital experience that is secure, inclusive, and empowering. Operating at the network level, the system screens suspicious calls and messages automatically, without requiring additional apps or special devices.

Urgency for this protection is underscored by the GASA State of Scams in Indonesia 2025 report released in late August. The report found that 66% of Indonesian adults encountered scam attempts in the past year, with 14% losing money totaling IDR49 T. Most scams occurred via direct-message platforms such as instant messaging and SMS. 

Bilal Khazmi, Director and Chief Commercial Officer, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison said: “This technology is designed to help our customers of all age groups explore the digital world with greater confidence. With fast connectivity, accessible products, and strong protection, we remain committed to deliver world class digital experiences, connecting and empowering every Indonesian."

Based on internal data, more than 290 M spam calls have been identified on Indosat's VoLTE network. When extrapolated to the entire customer base, this figure amounts to over 500 M identified scam and spam SMS and calls within just 2.5 months since the launch of the Anti-Spam and Anti-Scam feature. In addition, more than 145 M spam and scam messages have been flagged, including 110 M scam (fraudulent) messages.

Although the system does not yet fully block harmful calls or messages, its role as an early-warning system has proven effective in reducing financial losses and strengthening public digital awareness, Indosat said. Customers receive alerts before potential harm occurs, enabling them to take timely preventative action.

Indosat believes that technological progress must go hand-in-hand with digital literacy enhancement. Guided by the Zero Trust principle — never assume trust, always verify — this principle forms the foundation of Indosat’s approach in introducing this feature, helping the public remain vigilant toward suspicious messages, links, and calls.

The Anti-Spam and Anti-Scam feature, powered by Indosat’s AIvolusi5G technology, provides protection without requiring premium devices or additional app installations. For IM3 mobile customers, this protection is introduced as SATSPAM (Satuan Anti Scam dan Spam). SATSPAM BASIC is automatically active for all IM3 prepaid users with an active data package, and SATSPAM+ offers enhanced protection with the ability to detect malicious links.  

Tri mobile customers have a similar feature called TRI AI. AntiSpam/Scam features are available through visual detection with three colour codes: turquoise for a safe number, yellow for an unknown number, and red for high-risk numbers. 

Customers from IM3 and Tri can also access the Plus+ protection feature through the myIM3 and bima+ apps. This feature is automatically activated for users with an active data package, providing alerts via phone notifications and SMS for numbers flagged as suspicious or potentially harmful. It also offers clearer SMS warnings, colour-coded notification popups, and a call history summary accessible directly through the apps. 

MAS warns against phone and messaging scams

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has warned that there have been fraudulent messages and calls to members of the public that purport to be from MAS staff. These calls request personal or bank account information.

"MAS officers will never ask members of the public for personal banking information nor security login credentials," MAS said in a statement.

According to MAS, the calls may be received as regular phone calls or via applications such as Viber or WhatsApp. Perpetrators can even use caller ID spoofing technology to mask their actual phone numbers, instead displaying a genuine MAS contact number. MAS’ logo can appear as the profile picture on Viber or WhatsApp.

The person receiving the call will typically be told that his or her bank account has been locked or suspended, and then offered assistance to resolve the matter. The victim is asked to provide details of his or her bank account, Internet banking user ID and password. Scammers may also pretend to be staff from banks.

"Anyone who receives such messages or calls should not disclose personal information including Internet banking or credit card details, bank account username, personal identification numbers (PINs) or one-time passwords (OTPs)," MAS added.

MAS advises the public to:

- Never disclose Internet or mobile banking details or credit card details such as bank account user ID, passwords, PINs or OTPs to anyone through phone, email or SMS/messaging applications.

- Not authorise any suspicious authentication request. For example, they should not respond to digital token authentication or OTP requests via phone calls if Internet/mobile banking transactions were not initiated.

- Be suspicious of unsolicited messages or calls purporting to be from MAS or banks.

Those who receive a suspicious call, should hang up and report the call to MAS at webmaster@mas.gov.sg. Numbers provided by the caller should not be called, and the number should be blocked or reported as spam on the mobile application.

The scams can be reported to the police at hotline 1800 255 0000, or submitted online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. All information will be kept strictly confidential. For urgent police assistance, dial 999.

Scam-related advice is available from the anti-scam hotline at 1800 722 6688 or, at www.scamalert.sg.

Phishing-related advice is available from the MoneySense website.

Cards are 52% of payments in Asia, but new tools are emerging

An omnichannel payments strategy is key to creating a seamless customer experience for 79% of merchants and retailers according to benchmark data in 2017 Global Payments Insight Survey: Merchants and Retailers from ACI Worldwide and Ovum.

The study* revealed that although the EMV card standard has lowered fraud prevention costs, fraud continues to shift online. And while merchants and retailers plan to considerably increase investment in payments to improve customer experience (by 50% compared to 2015), more than three quarters of these organisations view security, compliance and fraud management issues as the biggest barriers to their investment decisions.

Principal findings include:

· Cards continue to dominate the payments market for retailers and merchants, making up 52% of payments in Asia

· New and alternative payment tools now account for 10% of global merchant transactions, with contactless cards now accounting for near 2% of transactions in Asia as high sales-volume merchants embrace quick and convenient means of payment

· Six in 10 (59%) of merchants and retailers plan to increase their payments investments during the next 18 to 24 months, up from 50% in 2015

· Payments investment is high in all sectors, with 65% of travel and accommodation companies reporting an increase in investment levels

· Merchants and retailers increasingly expect payments investment to improve the customer experience, but more than 75% indicate security and compliance are the biggest barriers to payments initiatives

· Although 52% of merchants and retailers say their card not present (CNP) losses are growing, 70% say they are satisfied with their CNP fraud prevention tools.

“As commerce becomes increasingly digital, payments technology is critical to improving customer engagement and reducing costs—with 79% of global merchants and retailers noting that an omnichannel approach is key to creating a seamless customer experience,” said Lynn Holland, VP, ACI Worldwide.

“Although there isn’t one path to payments modernisation for merchants and retailers, the benefits of investing in new and alternative payments methods are increasing—in terms of both merchants’ bottom lines and overall improvement of customer experience,” said Matthew Heaslip, Analyst, Ovum. “To stay competitive in this changing retail market, merchants and retailers must foster strong payment partnerships with companies that not only understand their market verticals, but can also help them both improve their omnichannel capabilities and reach new customers.”

Interested?

Read the 2017 Global Payments Insight Survey: Merchants and Retailers report

*For the 2017 Ovum Global Payment Information Survey, which includes merchant, biller, and retail banking components, ACI and Ovum created a 23-point questionnaire, looking at the following criteria for key payments players: significant aspects of existing payments infrastructure; forecasts for spending; areas for investment and perceptions of where payments fit within their broader strategic objectives. This survey was sent to payments decision makers globally in December, 2016—January, 2017. It provides a snapshot of payment perceptions among merchants, financial institutions, and scheduled billing and payment- taking organisations such as higher education, consumer finance and insurance. Overall, 1,475 executives across 15 industry sub-verticals in 25 key global markets responded, resulting in more than 144,000 separate data points on perceptions and expectations of payments among critical payment enablers globally.

Industries surveyed include general merchandise, food service and restaurants, grocery, fuel and convenience, and travel and lodging, based in countries in the Americas, Asia Pacific (APAC) and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

posted from Bloggeroid

High denomination notes in the current series no longer accepted in India

The Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended that bank notes in the Rs500 and Rs1,000 denominations of the existing series be made worthless. As of 9 November they stopped being legal tender, and all ATMs, cash deposit machines, cash recyclers and other machines used for receipt and payment of cash are shut on 9 and 10 November, 2016. Bank branches and government treasuries are open on 10 November, however.

The Indian government has explained that it has been difficult to easily identify genuine bank notes from fake ones and that the use of fake currency notes is affecting the economy adversely. The total number of bank notes in circulation rose by 40% between 2011 and 2016. Strangely enough, there was a 76% increase in the number of Rs500 notes and a 109% increase for Rs1,000 notes during this period. Another reason for the move is the loss of taxes from the practice of storing high-denomination bank notes as "unaccounted wealth".

The government further said that the old notes will be exchangeable for new ones. New series bank notes in the same denominations will be introduced for circulation from 10 November, 2016. The addition of Rs2,000 bank notes will be monitored and regulated by RBI. The new banknotes which be different from the current ones in terms of look, design, size and colour, the government said.

Under the new rules:

• Old notes may be deposited by individuals into their bank accounts and/or exchanged in bank branches or Issue Offices of the RBI till the close of business hours on 30 December, 2016
  
  
• Old notes totalling Rs4,000 or below in value can be exchanged by an individual at any bank branch or Issue Office of RBI for any denomination of bank notes having legal tender character, provided a requisition slip (format to be specified by RBI) is presented with proof of identity along with the notes. Similar facilities will also be made available in post offices. The limit of Rs.4,000 for exchanging notes at bank branches or at RBI issue offices will be reviewed after 15 days.


• There will not be any limit on the quantity or value of old notes to be credited to a bank where the individual has an account, at any bank in accordance with standard banking procedure and on production of valid proof of identity. However, in accounts where compliance with extant 'know your customer' (KYC) norms is not complete, a maximum value of Rs50,000 of old high-denomination notes may be deposited.
   
• The value of the old notes can be credited to a third-party account, provided specific authorisation therefor accorded by the said account holder is presented to the bank, following standard banking procedure and on production of valid proof of identity of the person actually tendering.


• Cash withdrawal from a bank account over the counter will be restricted to Rs10,000, subject to an overall limit of Rs20,000 per week for the first fortnight, until the end of business hours on November 24, 2016.


• Withdrawal from ATMs is restricted to Rs2,000 per day per card up to November 18, 2016. The limit will be raised to Rs4,000 per day per card from November 19, 2016 onwards.


• There will be no restriction on the use of any non-cash method of operating the account which will include cheques, demand drafts, credit/debit cards, mobile wallets and electronic fund transfer mechanisms.


• For those who are unable to exchange their old high-denomination notes or deposit them in their bank accounts on or before December 30, 2016, an opportunity will be given to them to do so at specified offices of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on later dates along with any documentation specified by RBI.


• The affected notes will continue to be accepted at government hospitals and pharmacies in these hospitals; railway ticketing counters and ticket counters of government/public sector outlets handling buses and airline ticketing counters at airports; for purchases at consumer co-operative societies, at milk booths, at crematoria/burial grounds, at petrol/diesel/gas stations of public sector oil marketing companies; for arriving and departing passengers at international airports and for foreign tourists to exchange foreign currency at airports up to a specified amount. 

Interested?

Read the FAQs at the RBI website
Read the notifications at the Finance Ministry website

posted from Bloggeroid

A third of consumers in Singapore have seen card fraud in the past five years: ACI Worldwide

Source: ACI Worldwide infographic. Nearly a third of consumers have experienced card fraud in the past five years.

Thirty-six percent of consumers in Singapore have experienced card fraud in the past five years, according to new global benchmark data* from ACI Worldwide and Aite Group. Singapore has the sixth highest rate of card fraud globally, and the third highest in Asia Pacific, according to new ACI Worldwide Global Consumer Fraud Survey.

ACI Worldwide powers electronic payments for more than 5,100 organisations around the world. Its global fraud study of more than 6,000 consumers across 20 countries revealed that, compared to ACI’s 2014 benchmark study, card fraud rates —unauthorised activity on three types of payment cards (debit, credit and prepaid)— has risen 8% in Singapore.

Fourteen out of the 17 countries surveyed both years reported an increase in card fraud between 2014 and 2016. Risky behaviours, such as leaving a smartphone unlocked when not in use, have a direct correlation to fraud—and the overall risk for fraud is rising due to the global increase in smartphone and tablet usage.

In the Asia-Pacific, Australia, India and Singapore experience the most card fraud:

· In 2016, Australia leads the way at 40%, followed by India at 37% and Singapore at 36%.

· Consumers in Thailand, India and Indonesia exhibit the riskiest behaviours among countries in the Asia-Pacific, compared to their counterparts in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore:

• Over a third (36%) in Thailand, 34% in India and 31% in Indonesia left smartphones unlocked when not in use.
• Four in 10 (43%) in Thailand, 30% in India and 29% in Indonesia banked or shopped online on computers without security software or on public computers.
• A quarter in Thailand, 20% in India and 19% in Indonesia responded to emails or calls asking for bank details.
• One in five (21%) in Indonesia and 19% in India and Thailand respectively kept a PIN with the card.

· The lower percentages of risky behaviour among consumers in Australia and New Zealand more closely resemble consumers in the Americas and EMEA.

“Card fraud rates are on the rise in the majority of countries included in the survey,” said Ben Knieff, Senior Research Analyst, Aite Group. “The data shows that consumer education and customer service remain a challenge for financial institutions globally, as risky behaviour has a direct correlation to experiencing fraud.”

With 2,260 confirmed data breaches in 2015 alone, security remains top-of-mind within the financial services industry and among consumers. Despite the adoption of fraud analytics solutions by financial institutions and merchants—along with EMV in most countries — card fraud rates are on the rise in many parts of the world.

“This study confirms that card fraud remains an issue of deep concern for consumers around the globe,” said Andreas Suma, VP and Global Lead, fraud and data, ACI Worldwide. “It’s no surprise that there is a direct correlation between fraud and lower consumer trust and card loyalty, including a primary contributor toward ‘back of wallet’ behavior. And as this data illustrates, it’s more critical than ever for financial institutions to implement and actively maintain effective fraud prevention solutions that address fraud, security and customer experience needs.”

“In the Asia-Pacific region, there is a clear correlation between risky behavior and fraud incidents,” said Giselle Lindley, Senior Fraud Consultant, ACI Worldwide. “This reveals an opportunity for consumer education focused on how consumer behavior affects the potential for fraud to occur. This will not only help reduce the incidents of fraud, but also empower consumers to gain confidence in their ability to protect themselves from fraud.”

Consumer trust is improving, but loyalty continues to lag

· Four in 10 consumers globally who received replacement cards as a result of a data breach or fraudulent activity use their replacement card less than they used their original card, resulting in lost interchange and interest revenue from decreased usage. This ‘back of wallet’ behaviour is especially prevalent in Asia-Pacific countries: 69% of consumers in Indonesia opt to use cash or an alternative payment method over credit or debit card following the card fraud incident

· Consumers in Singapore and Thailand (13% each) express the highest lack of confidence in financial institutions’ abilities to prevent fraud, compared to other Asia-Pacific countries.

· Consumers in the Asia-Pacific, especially those in Singapore, are most concerned about identify theft, data breaches resulting in compromised account numbers and online banking fraud.

· About half (48%) respectively in Thailand and India, and 44% in Indonesia switch financial institutions after a fraud experience. These high rates of customer attrition are costly to financial institutions

· Surprisingly, countries with higher fraud rates and lower levels of customer aftercare do not show high rates of moving cards to back of wallet. Seven in 10 (69%) in Indonesia, 58% in India and 56% in Thailand choose to use cash or alternative payment methods following card fraud only in some situations.

Interested?

A detailed analysis of the 2016 Global Consumer Fraud Report will be presented via webinar at 9am and 10pm July 27 Singapore time. Register for one of the webinars or to receive a complimentary copy of the two-part report.

*ACI Worldwide conducted online quantitative market research in Q216 and surveyed 6,159 consumers. The study was conducted in 20 countries in the following regions:

· The Americas (North and South America): Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and the US
· EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa): France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, the UAE, and the UK
· The Asia-Pacific: Australia, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Thailand and Singapore.

Asia Pacific companies expect more fraud in the next five years

Experian Asia Pacific’s flagship report, The Economics of Fraud: Mitigating Risk Amidst Fast Growth and Innovation, revealed that 59% of firms in Asia Pacific expect fraud to increase in the next five years, with over half of the surveyed firms (51%) indicating that they are spending more time and investment on fraud prevention.

The report from the data, analytical and marketing services provider takes a deep dive into the fraud landscape that businesses in Asia Pacific face today. Top-line findings around fast-growth markets from the report highlight that:

·         On a scale of 1-5 with 5 as the most concerned, across Asia Pacific, China (3.9) and Indonesia (4.6) are the most preoccupied with fraud as compared to mature markets like Australia and New Zealand, which ranked 3 and 3.1 respectively.

·         Telecommunications and financial services firms are the most concerned about fraud. Retailers are lagging – considering the growth and prevalence of e-commerce for consumers, particularly in China; this suggests an area for improvement.

·         According to the firms from financial services, fast-growth markets like Indonesia is at risk of credit application fraud (86%), while China (70%) and Malaysia (65%) are at risk of fraud that occurs due to online banking.

“Fortunately, many leading companies have fraud prevention measures in place, but these will need to be hyper-dynamic, constantly seeking to balance risk mitigation with minimising customer impact and intrusiveness. With the accelerating adoption of electronic and mobile commerce, fast-growth markets are now facing a greater number and greater variety of risks of attacks from fraudsters. The direct financial costs to companies across almost all industry segments are significant and the reputational exposure is even more immense,” said Jeff Price, Managing Director of South East Asia for Experian.

Top-line fraud prevention findings specific to Southeast Asia include:

·         Singaporean companies are the most likely to pass on fraud prevention costs to customers.

·         Malaysian companies are least reliant on external fraud prevention suppliers, a likely cause of their increased internal costs in fraud prevention measures.

·         Indonesian companies’ fraud prevention measures have a slight advantage against their Southeast Asian counterparts when it comes to the impact to a customer’s on-boarding process.

“The good news is that customers are not as affected by firms’ security measures. However, as fraudsters become more sophisticated, the onus is now on businesses to re-evaluate, reinvent and innovate their fraud prevention measures to stay ahead of fraud threats,” continued Price. “If achieved, the result would be the better capture of fraudulent activity whilst maintaining the level of trust between consumers and businesses.”

Interested?

Download the Asia Pacific Fraud Report

posted from Bloggeroid

Card not present fraud is growing, two-thirds of APAC credit card issuers vulnerable

As e-commerce grows across Asia Pacific, so does the risk of online fraud. In a survey conducted at a fraud forum hosted by FICO, a predictive analytics and decision management software company, senior heads of fraud from across the region said that card not present* (CNP) fraud is the fastest-rising area. Near all (94%) of attendees reported a rise in CNP fraud.

Research firm eMarketer estimates that B2C e-commerce sales in APAC this year will reach US$525.2 billion, versus US$482.6 billion in North America.

“Regional consumers have become more accepting of non-traditional banking platforms, substituting cash for mobile and online transactions,” said Dan McConaghy, President for FICO in Asia Pacific, who hosted the APAC Fraud Forum in Singapore. “As this shift occurs, we see criminals using social engineering, application fraud, data breaches and more to obtain card details." 

Source: FICO.

FICO provides predictive analytics which uses statistical models to analyse payment data as it happens, so it can detect fraud quickly. Fifteen thousand calculations are completed in milliseconds once a credit or debit card is swiped to detect if fraud has occurred. This solution is being used by some of the largest banks in the region.

“For FICO’s technology, it doesn’t matter whether a transaction occurs online or in a store,” McConaghy said. “That’s the beauty of predictive analytics — it can spot oddities in payment patterns across channels, across cardholders and across networks.”

More than a third of the organisations represented at the Fraud Forum have already started using predictive analytics to combat fraud. That number is on the rise as banks seek to avoid losing money to fraudulent schemes and avoid the potentially greater loss of departing customers.

Recent studies have shown that the poor handling of fraud is a key reason for losing a customer’s trust. A 2013 study by MasterCard found that 40-45% of APAC consumers will change card providers after experiencing fraud.

“Banks understand that consumers have so many choices these days that a badly handled fraud case can cause a customer to stop using its services entirely and move to another bank,” said McConaghy. “You don’t get a second chance these days. Reputations are built on the ability to provide trusted and convenient services while protecting a cardholder’s funds and data.”

*'Card not present' fraud is fraud that occurs when the physical card is not used for a commercial transaction. E-commerce payments typically do not require the physical card, just the numbers on the card.

Xaxis Prime combats digital ad fraud

Xaxis, one of the world's largest programmatic* advertising platforms, is addressing ad fraud what it says is the ad industry’s first fully programmatic product to guarantee human viewership for advertisers’ digital brand campaigns. 

Xaxis Prime extends beyond pre-bid analysis** and post-campaign blacklisting to dynamically identify and block robot traffic and suspicious sites, the company said. Existing fraud prevention safeguards have been combined with new technologies including a proprietary human verification tool based on internal and partner technology from Adara, Solve Media and Moat.

Types of fraud Xaxis Prime protects against include botnets, ad insertion or redirection, CMS/OS hacking, robots designed to behave like humans and robot retargeting. In addition to helping advertisers, the new product introduces several powerful new tools for Xaxis’ publisher partners to ensure only humans are viewing their inventory. These include proprietary, internal detection processes and integrated third party verification tools. These tools enable Xaxis to provide feedback to publishers on the inventory posing the most risk, allowing them to identify the cause and eradicate it prior to selling to Xaxis or other buyers. 

One way that Xaxis Prime guards against fraud is through tracking genuine visitors through answered captchas, completed transactions or specific human behaviours such as creative engagement and social sharing. These verified visitors are then cross-referenced in the Xaxis data management platform (DMP) against pre-bid impression evaluations and post-bid analysis of traffic metrics to provide an assurance that the traffic is indeed human.

At rollout, Xaxis Prime delivers a no-fraud guarantee across the Xaxis Marketplace. In addition to the proprietary human verification tool, Xaxis Prime guarantees 90% viewability, 95% brand safety and includes ongoing audits of all inventory, pre-bid impression evaluation, post-campaign reporting to validate inventory and audience that was acquired.

“Xaxis Prime represents the next step in our ongoing efforts and investment to combat digital ad fraud and ensure our clients achieve the highest possible real performance,” said Larry Allen, SVP of Business Development at Xaxis. 

“Ad fraud is an international problem impacting both advertisers and publishers. With Xaxis Prime, brands get a simple and powerful guarantee for their digital brand advertising across the top premium publishers.” 

*Programmatic technology allows advertisers to bid for the privilege to display an ad based on various rules, such as the types of viewers or the type of content displayed on a page. 

  

**Data can be pre-qualified before a bid is placed so that bids on fraudulent inventory are avoided or minimised.

HSBC Hong Kong warns customers against phishing emails

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) has alerted its Hong Kong customers that it has no connection to phishing e-mails which link to fraudulent HSBC websites. The websites feature links such as http://mercipapa.com.br/files/.files/HK/ and http://www.birth.hk/bb3/ol.php.
 

Source: HSBC. Sample phishing email.

"HSBC would like to remind its customers that the Bank's internet banking site does not carry a web page such as the one hyperlinked in the fraudulent e-mails, and has not sent these e-mails to its customers," the bank said in a statement on its website. "The bank has no connection with the fraudulent sites involved."
 

Source: HSBC. Another sample phishing email.

HSBC asked customers to type in the website address directly into the address bar of their browsers, and asked customers who suspect that they have been duped to call the HSBC customer service hotline at +852 2748 8288 for business
Internet banking users or +852 2233 3000 for personal Internet banking customers.

Fraudulent clicks and pageviews can inflate digital marketing results

So you've done your due diligence and purchased your online advertisements on a portal which produces really good results, perhaps better results than average. You sit back and watch the clickthroughs rise by the week, paying for 'leads' as users are attracted enough to visit the store locator pages of your website; but sales aren't increasing. What gives?

What might be happening is fraud, and not necessarily from the portal itself.
According to the US-based Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), there needs to be more awareness about non-intentional traffic which is affecting the accuracy of measurement for Traffic of Good Intent.

"The companies that participate in the digital advertising supply chain have been struggling with how to handle criminal enterprises intent on gaming the system,” said Steve Sullivan, Vice President, Advertising Technology, IAB.

“These fraudsters are diluting the value of all legitimate inventory while simultaneously diminishing the integrity of the entire digital marketing industry. The introduction of these best practices is a first step in reducing the marketplace repercussions of these illegal activities.”

The IAB and its Traffic of Good Intent Task Force have released the “Best Practices – Traffic Fraud: Reducing Risk to Exposure” guide to meet this challenge. The document explains how robotic traffic or 'bots' can infiltrate legitimate publisher platforms, and advises premium publishers and networks as well as buyers how to reduce risk.

According to the IAB Traffic of Good Intent Task Force, 'non-intentional traffic' can even occur without the knowledge of a user. In one method, users are automatically redirected to other websites after closing a website. In another, content such as ads or even full websites load invisibly in the background, at a  minute 1x1 pixel size for example, while a user is intentionally viewing content from other sites. 

What do perpetrators of non-intentional traffic get out of it? Huge volumes of pageviews leads to advertising inventory that can be sold on advertising exchanges. Alternatively, driving up traffic can increase the perceived value of infected browsers to both marketers and targeters. 

For example, bots can simulate 'clicks' on the invisible ads or through hijacking the browser software to record a 'visit' to the sites of marketers whose ads have been invisibly run. They may even produce a 'lead' by visiting the store locator page. 

“When only a handful of companies act to reduce fraud, the criminals win. We need to band together to effectively put a stop to the destruction of our industry at the hands of racketeers,” said John Battelle, Founder and Chairman, Federated Media, and co-Chair of the IAB Traffic of Good Intent Task Force. 

“Even the most scrupulous publishers and networks can be hit with non-intentional traffic propagated by criminals. If we want to truly address the problem, it is incumbent upon all stakeholders to embrace uniform levels of vigilance.”

The document on best practices for reducing the risk of online traffic fraud can be viewed here.