Clickjacking is a form of digital fraud where a hacker or other bad player will put a transparent page over another page. To the user nothing has changed, but when they try to click on something within the page, it is actually clicking on the transparent page above it. This allows the hackers to then redirect the user where they want them, download malware, even make ‘one-click’ purchases on Amazon. The issue is quite common and while sometimes it causes serious issues, many people just assume it is the result of pop-up ads or other similar things.
Google saw that their ad network was used with clickjacking earlier in 2016 and has been working on ways to stop it. According to a new blog post, they have now implemented a new filter that effectively excludes invalid traffic for both desktop and mobile devices. This is a good first step as it will refund those who are paying for the ads without getting their benefit. This also allows them to track which sites and account holders are engaging in this activity so they can be banned from the system.
The blog post about this topic says, “When our system detects a Clickjacking attempt, we zero-in on the traffic attributed to that placement and remove it from upcoming payment reports to ensure that advertisers are not charged for those clicks.”
While this isn’t the largest ad fraud issue facing the industry today, it is always good to see when direct action is being taken to make the industry safer for both marketers and users. You can read the full blog post HERE.
