Device Spoofing: What Is It & How to Protect Your Ads

There are no shortages of innovation in marketing. But as the complexity of digital advertising grows, so do the opportunities for fraudsters to exploit these advancements.

One method growing in popularity is device spoofing. This deceptive practice involves manipulating device data to mask a user's identity and location, allowing fraudsters to generate fake traffic, clicks, and impressions. Spoofing not only drains advertising budgets but also skews analytics needed for critical decision-making. 

Let’s take a closer look at some examples of spoofing and how you can protect your ads from this practice. 

What is Device Spoofing?

You might be familiar with the scam where someone disguises an email address, display name, phone number, or website URL to pose as a trusted source to gain personal information. Email spoofing, for example, is often used as part of a phishing scheme.

Device spoofing uses similar tactics to conduct click fraud. 

In this technique, fraudsters alter the identification data of their device - such as the type of device, browser, or operating system - to mask its true identity. This is strategically done to obscure the fact that a high number of clicks or form submissions originate from the same device. 

Under normal circumstances, repetitive activity from a single device would easily raise suspicions of fraudulent behavior. However, by employing device spoofing, fraudsters can carry out a higher volume of fraudulent clicks and form fills from one device while staying undetected.

Common Device Spoofing Techniques

There are a few different ways fraudsters can spoof devices. Here are some of the most common methods:

IP Address Spoofing

IP spoofing involves altering the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the originating device in network packets sent over the Internet. In other words, this type of device spoofing makes traffic appear like it’s coming from different locations or networks.

User-Agent Spoofing

This type of device ID spoofing deals with modifying the user-agent string. This informs web servers about the type of device, operating system, and browser being used to access a website. Fraudsters can use this technique to make a single device’s multiple interactions appear as if they’re coming from different devices. 

Browser Spoofing

This specifically involves imitating different web browsers or versions of browsers. By spoofing the browser, fraudsters can trigger ad displays or content that should be exclusive to specific browsers or exploit browser-specific vulnerabilities.

The Impact of Device Spoofing

Device spoofing is most commonly used to carry out ad fraud. Some of the potential losses caused by spoofing include:

• Wasted Ad Spend: Millions of dollars can be wasted on ads that are never seen by genuine users but instead are interacted with by spoofed devices.
• Skewed Analytics: Analytics that guide future advertising strategies become unreliable, which may lead to more inefficiencies and financial losses.
• False Leads: Chasing down illegitimate leads is a waste of time and resources. 
• Increased Operational Costs: More resources are then diverted to identify and mitigate fraud. It’s best to proactively respond to ad fraud than scramble to react.

Of course, these are just the tangible impacts of device spoofing. Gaining a reputation as a platform with high levels of fraud or as a brand with fraudulent traffic can be just as detrimental in the long term.

Examples of Spoofing in Action

1. Click Fraud: Fraudsters use device spoofing to simulate clicks from various devices and IP addresses. This can inflate the performance metrics of PPC campaigns, causing advertisers to pay for clicks that have no actual user intent behind them.
2. Impression Fraud: Device and browser spoofing techniques are used to create fake impressions, meaning advertisers are paying for impressions that were not viewed by real people.
3. Affiliate Fraud: Fraudsters can use spoofed devices to generate actions or transactions that appear to come from diverse and real sources. This earns them commission undeservedly and causes your business to lose money.

How to Protect Your Ads from Device Spoofing

As fraudsters become more sophisticated, so does their ability to conduct device spoofing on a massive scale. The reality is that once device ID spoofing begins, especially when backed by a large botnet or human fraud farms, detecting ad fraud becomes increasingly complex.

To protect your ads from device spoofing, you need a specialized ad fraud solution such as Anura. Anura's advanced technology allows for real-time detection of fraudulent activities in advertising campaigns. By analyzing large data sets and patterns that are indicative of fraude based on historical data Anura effectively distinguishes between legitimate traffic and fraudulent attempts.

Stop wasting money on traffic that will not convert. Learn more about Anura today.