Crime-Fighting is Vital New Function for Online Video Ad Companies
Companies in the digital advertising field find themselves running protective programs and coming up with security practices that virtually provide them with their own policing platforms for fighting ad video fraud. They would be helpless victims of this crime without such measures, since there is not a lot of government effort in this area (meaning the government online security efforts target different and more politically urgent crimes). And private online security providers come with high price tags.
Video advertising fraud sometimes find retail companies discovering their data systems breached and data stolen and used by criminals to reach and defraud their consumers. Fraud can also be a form of industrial sabotage, a by-product of industrial espionage that some reckless find useful in business. In response some companies respond by setting up entrapment programs that seek to engage and destroy often the often undetectable bots used in online fraud. Being crime-fighters was not a role that digital advertisers were prepared for, but it has now become pro forma in a business that attracts hordes of tech savvy criminals. Malicious ad traffic alone accounts for many instances of fraud and other damage that continually sting ad companies’ online operations. It starts when the companies find themselves being victimized at will and their quick-witted responses to such actions – slow response means that much more data and programs being damaged or lost. This has become a part of a crime-fighting environment that requires very fast techniques for adapting programs to threats and (on the criminal side) quickly creating programs to avoid detection or new ones to continue plying their dark trade.
Video ad companies are now building a culture of security to combat a rapidly growing threat before it gets out of hand. Fraudsters often rely on standardization and protocol in ad technology to easily enter systems and/or create fraudulent programs. Standardization provides them with the blueprint to “game” a system by using VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) to manipulate XML content and wreak havoc on a company’s business. While still newbies to the crime-fighting trade, programmers and systems analysts who form part of a company’s security teams are not without moxy, dedication and the capability to defeat their nemeses on the other side. In fact, it will probably be eventually discovered how they are better-placed to combat threats than most other sectors in the field of crime prevention.
New laws or processes to regulate the new and often chaotic Western frontier of online security must be developed, and fast. Many serious companies are going to be affected by some measures suggested for putting a stop to online advertising fraud. The video ecosystem must be studied and revamped to put in more stringent security measures for businesses – otherwise the system might find companies abandoning their online efforts because online standards and protocol do not give them the necessary capability edge to protect their products and themselves.