New York, NY – October 8, 2019 – To combat the growing risks in the digital advertising environment, Integral Ad Science (IAS), the global market leader in digital ad verification, today announced the expansion of their Threat Lab, doubling down on their efforts to find, catch, and protect against malicious invalid traffic and fraud. The lab’s mission is two-fold: protecting the greater community from malicious attacks with proactive surveillance and safeguarding publishers and advertisers’ digital media investments.

In the past two years alone, fraud on mobile web display has increased by 41.6%. With content creation accelerating at an unprecedented rate and advertisers investing more dollars in digital, fraudsters will continue to capitalize on lucrative opportunities; the latest projections from Juniper Research estimate that global ad fraud on digital campaigns will reach $44 billion in wasted ad spend by 2022. 

IAS originally launched the lab in 2015, working with experts in multiple industries, law enforcement, and academic institutions to examine the forces behind digital advertising fraud. The lab is comprised of dedicated teams of specialized malware analysts, data engineers, white-hat-hackers, and data scientists who use machine learning, browser analysis, behavioral analysis, and targeted reconnaissance to identify and stop fraudulent activity.

10 billion daily impressions feed IAS’s proprietary machine learning models, making the algorithms smarter at a faster rate than other verification solutions. IAS protects digital campaigns with surgical precision and the rapid classification of new threats as they emerge. Powered by AI and fueled by a global scale, IAS’s technology enables advertisers to take control of their media investment and publishers to maximize the value of their inventory. 

With continuous surveillance, the Threat Lab is able to monitor for spikes in fraudulent activity to alert customers – in one case, the lab’s investigation saved a major media platform $2.7 million annually from a single fraudster. The Threat Lab identified Avireen, a stealthy and flexible ad fraud botnet that generates approximately 1,500 fraudulent website impressions per hour per infected computer. The lab also regularly conducts studies into emerging threats, such as incentivized browsing, Poweliks, and Proxy8.