Botnet attacks on the rise

There has been a ten per cent rise in botnet online attacks during the third quarter of 2008, new research reveals.

According to figures released by the Click Fraud Index, Botnets have grown to make up more than 27 per cent of all forms of click fraud, while the overall industry average click fraud rate remained relatively constant at 16 per cent.

The average click fraud rate of pay-per-click advertisement appearing on search engine content networks including Google Adsense and the Yahoo Publisher Network was 27.1 per cent - down slightly from 27.6 in the second quarter this year.

Among the countries responsible for the greatest amount of click fraud were Russia (4.9 per cent), France (4.8 per cent) and the UK (3.5 per cent).

Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics, said: “Gains are being made by advertisers taking more action to proactively filter out fraud before it affects online campaigns.

“However, the growth in click fraud traffic from botnets continues to rise and it should be one of the top areas advertisers and the industry should monitor closely.”