Understanding the Detection of View Fraud in Video Content Portals

While substantial effort has been devoted to understand fraudulent activity in traditional online advertising (search and banner), more recent forms such as video ads have received little attention. The understanding and identification of fraudulent activity (i.e., fake views) in video ads for advertisers, is complicated as they rely exclusively on the detection mechanisms deployed by video hosting portals. In this context, the development of independent tools able to monitor and audit the fidelity of these systems are missing today and needed by both industry and regulators. In this paper we present a first set of tools to serve this purpose. Using our tools, we evaluate the performance of the audit systems of five major online video portals. Our results reveal that YouTube's detection system significantly outperforms all the others. Despite this, a systematic evaluation indicates that it may still be susceptible to simple attacks. Furthermore, we find that YouTube penalizes its videos' public and monetized view counters differently, the former being more aggressive. This means that views identified as fake and discounted from the public view counter are still monetized. We speculate that even though YouTube's policy puts in lots of effort to compensate users after an attack is discovered, this practice places the burden of the risk on the advertisers, who pay to get their ads displayed.Comment: To appear in WWW 2016, Montr\'eal, Qu\'ebec, Canada. Please cite the conference version of this pape

An Analysis of Botnet Vulnerabilities

Botnets are a significant threat to computer networks and data stored on networked computers. The ability to inhibit communication between servers controlling the botnet and individual hosts would be an effective countermeasure. The objective of this research was to find vulnerabilities in Unreal IRCd that could be used to shut down the server. Analysis revealed that Unreal IRCd is a very mature and stable IRC server and no significant vulnerabilities were found. While this research does not eliminate the possibility that a critical vulnerability is present in the Unreal IRCd software, none were identified during this effort

Managing Security Issues

Security is coming more and more in the spotlight of today’s news. Several reasons have lead to this, like the maturity of computer technology, which gave access to more people to computer systems, and the evolution of the internet and computer networking in general. Security, as most technology issues, doesn’t evolve in general directions, but follows the direction of technology innovation. This focused direction of security research creates a number of different trends that evolve during time. This study will focus on the trends that have been emerging lately and the implications they have in security management. Suggestions will be proposed in order to accommodate the forthcoming changes

Liability for Botnet Attacks

This paper will consider the possibility of using tort liability to address cyber insecurity. In previous work, I have proposed a hypothetical lawsuit by the victim of a DDoS attack against the vendor of unreasonably insecure software, the flaws of which are exploited to create the DDoS attack army. Indeed, software vendors are facing increasing public disapproval for their contributions to cyber insecurity. However, not all DDoS attack armies are assembled by exploiting flaws in software. Computers are also infected when users voluntarily open infected email attachments or download infected files from file-sharing networks. Accordingly, the cyber insecurity resulting from the large numbers of average end-users with infected computers cannot be entirely addressed by reducing the number of exploitable flaws in widely-deployed software. It may be useful to find additional ways to address other avenues of infection

The White-hat Bot: A Novel Botnet Defense Strategy

Botnets are a threat to computer systems and users around the world. Botmasters can range from annoying spam email propagators to nefarious criminals. These criminals attempt to take down networks or web servers through distributed denial-of-service attacks, to steal corporate secrets, or to launder money from individuals or corporations. As the number and severity of successful botnet attacks rise, computer security experts need to develop better early-detection and removal techniques to protect computer networks and individual computer users from these very real threats. I will define botnets and describe some of their common purposes and current uses. Next, I will reveal some of the techniques currently used by software security professionals to combat this problem. Finally I will provide a novel defensive strategy, the White-hat Bot (WHB), with documented experiments and results that may prove useful in the defense against botnets in the future

Reducing the Threat of State-to-State Cyber Attack against Critical Infrastructure through International Norms and Agreements

The global proliferation of networked computer systems within the public and private sectors presents an increased opportunity for malicious cyber attacks to disrupt the daily functions of governments, national emergency systems, the global economy, and our modern way of life. The potentially pandemic nature of network failures presents opportunities for states to work together to identify key infrastructure sectors of shared interest and formulate international norms and strategies to protect them from cyber attacks and prevent cascading failures within modern society. Nation-states that share information infrastructure critical to modern social functions will have a vested interest in protecting these systems from cyber attacks while mitigating their own inclination to attack these same networks. This paper outlines the state-to-state cyber threat to critical-system infrastructures and the role international agreements can play in limiting this threat. The paper has been structured as follows. It begins by defining a critical system and discussing the actors who pose threats to these systems and the motivations behind their decisions. This is followed by a detailed description of a hypothetical scenario that depicts the methods by which one state could attack another state’s critical infrastructure, to include the motivations behind the attack. In conclusion, it makes recommendations regarding the development of an international agreement designed to limit this specific type of attack

Typhoid Mario: Video Game Piracy as Viral Vector and National Security Threat

Current academic and policy discussions regarding video game piracy focus on the economic losses inherent to copyright infringement. Unfortunately, this approach neglects the most significant implication of video game piracy: malware distribution. Copyright-motivated efforts to shut down file-sharing sites do little to reduce piracy and actually increase viral malware infection. Pirated video games are an ideal delivery device for malware, as users routinely launch unverified programs and forego virus detection. The illicit nature of the transaction forces users to rely almost entirely on the reputation of websites, uploaders, and other users to determine if a file is safe to download. In spite of this, stakeholders continue to push for ineffectual anti-infringement actions that destroy this reputational infrastructure. Scholars and policymakers have not made a case for utility by considering only first-stage economic incentives to create content. In addition to the economic consequences, malware must be taken seriously as a threat to infrastructure and national security, especially in light of Russia’s efforts to infect machines to influence and delegitimize elections. Accordingly, this Article proposes that we adopt a harm reduction philosophy that both dissuades piracy and decreases the malware risk attendant to ongoing piracy