- AdSense users are being threatened with a deluge of bot and junk traffic in exchange for paying a bitcoin ransom.
- Google reassured that it has all the tools necessary to protect websites from invalid traffic.
As per a KrebsonSecurity report, there is a new email-based Bitcoin ransomware attack targetting Google AdSense users. The attackers send emails to these users, threatening to flood their websites with bot and junk traffic. This would inevitably lead to the site getting suspended by Google due to suspicious activity. In return, these hackers are asking for a ransom paid in Bitcoin. AdSense is a Google program that allows website owners to run ads on their platforms.
The report cites an anonymous website owner targeted by the hackers, who shared an excerpt from the ransom email.
This will happen due to the fact that we’re about to flood your site with huge amount of direct bot generated web traffic with 100% bounce ratio and thousands of IP’s in rotation — a nightmare for every AdSense publisher.
This means that the main source of profit for your site will be temporarily suspended. It will take some time, usually a month, for the AdSense to lift your ad ban, but if this happens we will have all the resources needed to flood your site again with bad quality web traffic which will lead to second AdSense ban that could be permanent!
For their part, Google has reassured KrebsOnSecurity that this is a pretty “classic” scam and it has all the necessary tools to protect websites against invalid traffic.
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