Chinese Scammers Pretend to be Media Agency

Recently there has been an increase in the number of fake agencies attempting to buy media. It is Somewhat of a modern-day advertising scam where one of the culprits have been traced back to China.

Have you ever clicked on advertisements on a website and wondered if they are actually legitimate or a scam that is designed to steal your personal information or worst, your money? In the past years time there has been several reputable ad networks forced into displaying cybercrook's ads. How did it happen? It is rather simple, the cybercrooks tricked the ad agency into thinking that they were a legitimate ad company.

Recently Chinese scammers pretended to be an ad agency and was able to sell advertising and insert code into the mix of an ad network's rotation. The scam happens like this. The cybercooks purchase media advertising through the use of bogus communication sent to a company. The communication is in email form simply stating that they represent a media company and would like to run an ad campaign with them. After that, a credit sheet or references made up by the crook are sent in an attempt to make the pitch seem legitimate. Ad networks are very likely to accept the pitch made by the crooks especially if it means more money in his companies pocket. Little does the legitimate ad network know, but the credit references all have the same registrar in China and are part of a scam.

The video below from Industrypace.com demonstrates what was discovered with a particular group of Chinese scammers pretending to be a media agency so they can trick an ad network into accepting them.

Unfortunately these scams happen all the time. Advertisements are the bread and butter for the majority of large websites on the internet today. Without them the internet would hardly exists. By scammers attempting to take advantage of certain ad networks and agencies it naturally hurts businesses that primarily function over the internet.

Do you think security researchers and crime prevention agencies should focus more on cracking down on ad agency scammers online or continue their efforts at battling malware outbreaks? Which is more important in your view?