Russian IT company suspected of implementing one of the most complex schemes of fraud on the Internet
Russian developers from Novosibirsk are suspected of creating the most complicated fraudulent scheme on the Internet.
Representatives of the Canadian computer security firm Sentrant accused the Novosibirsk company Academ Media of fraud. Allegedly, they used the service for managing and exchanging MoPub mobile advertising owned by Twitter for their frauds. Experts suggest that this scheme is one of the most complex of the existing today, reported the Financial Times.
More than 200 applications from Google Play were modified in such a way that after they were installed, background ads automatically loaded. In this case, the owners of gadgets, advertisements were not visible. The fraud code, in particular, was found in the free game for children Frozen Flame, which was downloaded over 100 thousand times.
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According to experts, thanks to such a scheme, the scammers managed to receive up to $ 250,000 daily from advertisers who pay for the number of views of their ads.
“This is as dishonorable as any other financial crime in the world,” said Sentrant executive director Allen Dillon. In the end, it will hit consumers, because someone has to pay for these losses. "
Russian developers reject all accusations. Academ Media claims that its applications were hacked by an unknown hacker, who made changes to the software code in order to receive money for advertising, which in fact was not shown to anyone.
However, Sentrant employees insist that last year they discovered more than 20 “dummy companies” associated with “Academ Media”, they all also use the stealth virus, which was previously found in the applications of the Novosibirsk company.
Timofey Prokhorov, Head of Academic Media's Business Relations Department, told TASS that the company had repeatedly applied to Google Play to block accounts from which fraudulent applications were distributed. However, in the end, in September 2015, Google closed not only their accounts, but also official company accounts.
After that, noted Prokhorov, the company decided not to cooperate with Google Play at all. For more than six months, the main platform for distributing its applications for Academ Media is the Apple App Store.
Representatives of the Canadian computer security firm Sentrant accused the Novosibirsk company Academ Media of fraud. Allegedly, they used the service for managing and exchanging MoPub mobile advertising owned by Twitter for their frauds. Experts suggest that this scheme is one of the most complex of the existing today, reported the Financial Times.
More than 200 applications from Google Play were modified in such a way that after they were installed, background ads automatically loaded. In this case, the owners of gadgets, advertisements were not visible. The fraud code, in particular, was found in the free game for children Frozen Flame, which was downloaded over 100 thousand times.
')
According to experts, thanks to such a scheme, the scammers managed to receive up to $ 250,000 daily from advertisers who pay for the number of views of their ads.
“This is as dishonorable as any other financial crime in the world,” said Sentrant executive director Allen Dillon. In the end, it will hit consumers, because someone has to pay for these losses. "
Russian developers reject all accusations. Academ Media claims that its applications were hacked by an unknown hacker, who made changes to the software code in order to receive money for advertising, which in fact was not shown to anyone.
However, Sentrant employees insist that last year they discovered more than 20 “dummy companies” associated with “Academ Media”, they all also use the stealth virus, which was previously found in the applications of the Novosibirsk company.
Timofey Prokhorov, Head of Academic Media's Business Relations Department, told TASS that the company had repeatedly applied to Google Play to block accounts from which fraudulent applications were distributed. However, in the end, in September 2015, Google closed not only their accounts, but also official company accounts.
After that, noted Prokhorov, the company decided not to cooperate with Google Play at all. For more than six months, the main platform for distributing its applications for Academ Media is the Apple App Store.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/298518/
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