How we fight ad fraud and malvertising at Adsterra

Adsterra — Wed, 06 May 2026 12:24:58 +0000

Ad fraud and malvertising are ongoing problems in digital advertising, and honestly, there’s no such thing as a “perfect” solution. What we try to do at Adsterra is build systems that continuously adapt, combining automation, human review, and clear policies to reduce risks for both advertisers and publishers.

Our goal is simple: help advertisers get real results without wasting money on fake metrics and help publishers monetize safely, not worrying about malicious ads.

Why this matters for both sides

From what we’ve seen over the years:

Advertisers struggle with wasted budgets, fake impressions, and misleading performance data
Publishers risk exposing their users to malicious ads and damaging their reputation

That’s why we don’t rely on reacting to fraud after it happens. We try to detect and block issues as early as possible, while continuously monitoring what’s going on across the platform.

Ad fraud vs malvertising

These two are often mixed up, but they’re not the same:

Ad fraud is about faking engagement (impressions, clicks, conversions) to generate revenue
Malvertising is about delivering malicious code through ads

In short, ad fraud affects budgets and metrics while malvertising affects security and users. Both matter, and both need different types of prevention and safety measures.

Adsterra zero-tolerance approach

We take a strict stance here. Everyone using Adsterra, advertisers and publishers, agrees to clear Terms & Conditions that prohibit:

Any attacks on user devices or inventory
Privacy violations or data theft
Phishing
Malware (including stealers, miners, etc.)
Spoofing or misrepresentation
Any other illegal activity

If we detect violations, accounts are permanently banned. No resets, no second chances. To enforce this, we rely heavily on our Policy Team, which continuously reviews traffic, ads, and new threats. This helps our partners lead safe businesses, whether running ads or monetizing their websites.

Adsterra Malware Official Statement: Zero Tolerance For Scam and Malicious Advertising: anti-malvare/adsterra.com

How our protection system works in practice

We don’t rely on a single tool or layer. Instead, we combine a few approaches for maximum result.

1. Automated protection
We use a mix of third-party solutions and our own systems tailored to ad delivery. These help us detect malware in ads and landing pages, analyze traffic sources, monitor impressions, clicks, and conversions, track unusual behavior (like GEO changes or abnormal request patterns). Every new traffic source goes through a 360-degree analysis.

As a result, any suspicious source or ad is prevented from being let into the system which means advertisers and publishers have a lower risk of exposure to untrustworthy activity.

2. Human review
Automation is powerful, but it’s not enough on its own. Our dedicated Policy Team reviews ads and inventory manually, Investigates suspicious activity, tests new detection methods, looks into edge cases algorithms might miss. This combination helps us catch more nuanced or evolving threats.

3. Fast response to reports
We rely a lot on feedback from partners. If someone reports suspicious activity:

We start an investigation immediately
Run automated + manual checks
Ask the involved party to prove their traffic or ads are clean
Suspend accounts until everything is verified

It’s a tightly knit infrastructure, and it helps react quickly and stay transparent while advertisers and publishers are informed and kept up with the ongoing security precedents.

Common malvertising patterns we deal with

Here are some typical cases we see:

Ad call attacks: third-party servers inject malicious code into ad feeds.
In-landing malware: harmful code embedded directly on landing pages.
Post-click redirects: users are sent to fake destinations after clicking.
Malicious creatives: bad actors upload infected ad assets.

To handle this, we scan creatives, prelanders, landing pages, and full ad delivery paths. The outcome is safer ads that don’t compromise website security for publishers and reduced threats for users interacting with these ads.

Common ad fraud techniques

We also deal with a range of fraud scenarios. Let’s see into the most common of them.

Hidden or extra ads
Examples:

1×1 pixel iframes
Duplicated ad placements
Ads outside the visible screen

We track which ads appear where to ensure this type of fraud is detected and properly dealt with.

Traffic laundering
This means mixing real and fake traffic using redirects. We monitor sources continuously and block suspicious ones once detected.

By the way, this type of fraud is often promoted as a legit “earning trick”. So when you see a video or article that includes the “Adsterra earning trick” sentiment in the title, it’s best to double-check what exactly the creator means and whether he or she is trustworthy enough.

Bot traffic, botnets, click farms

Bots simulating user behavior
Networks of fake “ghost sites”
Artificial engagement (clicks, likes, etc.)

We combine AI detection with manual checks to keep traffic as close to real human behavior as possible. For advertisers, this results in better campaign metrics since no budget is wasted on fake engagement or bot traffic.

Incentivized traffic
This one is very popular. While this traffic isn’t innately fake, and these are real users that interact with the ads, they complete actions for rewards, which rarely leads to real conversions. At Adsterra, we analyze behavior patterns and conversion quality to limit this type of traffic. This approach helps advertisers not only get engagement on their ads but actually convert as the users interacting with the ads are those really interested in whatever it is the ad is delivering.

Multi-accounting
Though clearly prohibited, creating multiple accounts to bypass restrictions is still a widespread trick at times even promoted online.

We know how to deal with it through multi-step verification, behavior monitoring, and pattern detection. Accounts that violate rules are blocked.

The bigger picture: how everything connects

Over time, we’ve built a multi-layered security infrastructure where each layer adds to the bigger picture:

Research & improvements: ongoing malware research, AI training, infrastructure updates.
Publisher protection: account verification, ad scanning, malware detection.
Advertiser protection: traffic validation, conversion checks, fraud detection.
Infrastructure security: secure servers, encrypted data, protected payments.

This holistic approach to security and safety results in reduced invalid traffic, protected budgets, and high traffic quality across campaigns as well as safe and sound ads for publishers and their audiences alike.

Final thoughts

We don’t believe ad fraud or malvertising can ever be fully eliminated. What we aim for instead is reducing risks as much as possible, reacting quickly when something slips through, being transparent with our partners.

It’s an ongoing process, and we’re still learning and improving, just like everyone else in this space.

Further details:
Adsterra's Terms and Conditions for Advertisers: terms/advertisers/adsterra.com
Adsterra's Terms and Conditions for Publishers: terms/publishers/adsterra.com

DEV Community: Adsterra