'Bahama' botnet takes fraud to new heights

Security researchers warn of a highly sophisticated botnet set up to commit click fraud on a huge scale, while bypassing conventional filters, says Computing.co.uk.

Click Forensics, a firm that monitors ad campaigns for click fraud, said yesterday it had discovered the 'Bahama' botnet, so called because it redirects traffic through 200 000 parked domain sites located in the Bahamas.

Click fraud is the process by which automated machines are instructed to click on particular ads to replicate human clicks and defraud the pay-per-click advertising model, generating revenue for the perpetrators.

Scammers posing as representatives of phone service providers, such as BT, are calling UK subscribers in an attempt to trick prospective marks into handing over credit card or bank details under threat of disconnection, reports The Register.

Plausibility is added to the scam by a trick designed to fool people into thinking their line has been temporarily cut off, ostensibly under the control of the person calling them.

This happens after fraudsters are challenged to establish their identity as a representative of a telecoms carrier.

The US Justice Department has urged a New York court to reject a deal that would allow Internet company Google to publish millions of books online, says the BBC.

The deal raised copyright and anti-trust issues, the department said, and should be rejected in its current form.

The court is due to rule on the issue early next month.

Adobe Systems is introducing the first two services in a planned line of cloud-based services intended to enhance deployment of Web applications, reports Info World.

Called Adobe Flash Platform Services, the platform features online, hosted services to enable Flash developers to add capabilities to Web applications using a cost-efficient deployment model, Adobe said.

The first service, Adobe Flash Platform Services for Distribution, available from today, enables advertisers and content publishers to monetise applications across social networks, desktops, and mobile devices.