Dive summary:
- Security researchers have discovered the Chameleon botnet that has been responsible for over $6 million lost in fraudulent online ad clicks.
- The botnet has infected over 120,000 Windows-based computers with Internet Explorer 9; the botnet enters the web through a Flash-enabled Trident-based browser that executes Java Script.
- After infection, the botnet mimics human behaviors on certain websites generating billions of ad impressions and creating incomes for creators.
From the article:
"The discovery of the Chameleon botnet comes a month after Microsoft and Symatec took down the Bamital botnet, which also costs Internet advertisers millions of dollars. While being more than 70 times more costly than Bamital, Chameleon is notable in that it is the first botnet to be impacting display advertisers at this scale."
