MMI Releases Report on Mainstream Developer Tools Enabling Large Scale Ad Fraud
Bots are often associated with cybercriminals and malware, but our research confirms it is far easier to generate robotic activity with developer tools such as headless Chrome and Amazon Web Services.
- Bots are often associated with cybercriminals and malware, but our research confirms it is far easier to generate robotic activity with developer tools such as headless Chrome and Amazon Web Services.
- Browser bots use automation tools such as Selenium, Puppeteer, and Playwright.
- These tools are developed and maintained by Google and Microsoft, and can be deployed at enormous scale using cloud computing technologies provided by Amazon (AWS), Google (GCP), and Microsoft (Azure).
- The intention of this report is not to shame individual advertising platforms or brands, but to demonstrate that the technological and economic barriers to commit ad fraud are very low.