How to Stop Forced Auto Redirect Advertising

To stop forced redirect ads, you need a solution that detects them using a combination of blocklists and behavioral detection methods that identify tactics like fingerprinting, code similarities, and steganography.

Detect forced redirect ads

Redirects are a code, so if you could find that code, you could find the redirect ads. But it isn’t always that simple—scammers often hide the code using sophisticated encryption tactics that make it impossible for many scans to detect it.

For example, like with cloaking, scammers often start by showing the ad creative without redirection and only activate the code after the SSPs and DSPs approve the ad. In addition, redirect ads are often only activated for users who meet certain criteria and structured so that users are redirected to different sites according to different events, making the scam harder to detect in a standard scan. They also create conditions for the attack. They often attack devices when they’re on a mobile network because if a user’s on the move, they’re less likely to notice the warning signs.

The scammers know that publishers and their ad quality partners are looking for them, and they go to great lengths to avoid detection. Scammers utilize sophisticated methods to disguise themselves as legitimate advertisers in order to get around various security mechanisms that publishers deploy.

Many utilize a method called obfuscation that mixes up malicious code and makes it look like gibberish so it can’t be identified. Scammers usually conduct obfuscation in layers, so even if one layer is detected in a scan, there are additional layers that continue to hide the redirection. In other cases, they use a method called steganography, which hides the malicious code in a single pixel that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for ad blockers and other mechanisms to detect.

Since the redirect doesn’t occur in every instance in the same way, blocklists aren’t enough to detect them. Blocklists need to be combined with behavioural detection methods that identify tactics like fingerprinting, code similarities, and steganography in order to accurately and consistently detect redirect ads.

How to block redirect ads

The best time to fight forced redirects is before they happen. Publishers have tried to prevent redirects by raising or lowering price floors, implementing inefficient DIY solutions, and asking their ops teams to manually track down the source of redirects that appear in their ad units. These solutions are slow, resource-heavy, and ultimately ineffective. Publishers need real-time solutions for their web sites that allow them to maximize revenue for every ad request while still blocking redirect ads.

GeoEdge’s cutting-edge technology monitors the programmatic ad ecosystem for ad security and quality issues, including redirection attacks. Not only does it block previously known issues before they reach publishers’ web sites, but it also uses machine learning to detect and block new threats in real time.

GeoEdge’s real-time blocking of bad ads takes you beyond redirects, and addresses the spectrum of digital security threats. GeoEdge leads the charge for ad quality assurance, detecting and blocking latent, and explicit creative.No other company provides these comprehensive security and quality tools. With GeoEdge protection, you can begin perfecting the overall performance of your sites, growing your audience, deepening engagement, and earning more revenue.

Everyone gets auto-redirects. No one has to. Talk with GeoEdge’s acclaimed support team about how we together can stop redirects before they happen… and so much more.