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E.J. Hilbert is the President of Online Intelligence. OI is a division of Epic Advertising and provides Epic’s security, anti-fraud and anti-abuse programs. OI also provides brand protection and cyber investigative services to outside clients. Hilbert is the former Director of Security Enforcement for MySpace.com and served 8 years as a Special Agent for the FBI specializing in international hacking groups, online criminal activity and counter terrorism.

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High Noon for Industry Security

Written on
Apr 20, 2010 
Author
E.J. Hibbert  |
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High Noon for Industry Security

highnoon_smallADOTAS – When I told several of my colleagues in the security arena nine months ago that I was resigning my position as the director of security enforcement for MySpace to take on a security role for the online advertising firm Epic Advertising, their first statement was, “Security for an ad agency — really? You’re a cyber crime expert and former FBI agent. Why does an ad agency need your expertise?”

My response was simple: online advertising is a $24 billion industry and any industry making that much money has a huge target on its back.

Online advertising, once thought of as a fad or scheme, has morphed into a necessity for any company engaged in marketing their products and/or services. Because of this innate requirement for the success of product marketing, it can often become clouded and tarnished with very real scams within the online advertising realm.

Damaging practices can range from directly impacting the products currently being pushed, to back-end manipulation by the agencies, to the system being altered by ethically challenged affiliate marketers.

From a high level, many viewed the start of online advertising as a get-rich-quick scheme with few rules, causing a de facto Wild Wild West. Over time, hundreds of groups jumped into the industry, and a significant amount of money was made — and lost.

As the industry continues to evolve, the companies that are dedicated to improving online advertising — beyond the short-lived lining of their pockets — have expended millions to implement rules, fine-tune their advertising methods, hone their tracking software and advance any other aspects of the business they felt would increase profit margins.

Most recently, the top companies in the industry are focusing on compliance while securing their systems against fraud and abuse. Others, like Epic Advertising, are taking a long-term approach by realizing that if they are truly going to protect their investment and make their company grow, they need to protect the whole of the company.

For years, the online advertising industry has been laden with fraudulent actions by various players, while also suffering the scrutiny of the FTC, lawsuits and bankruptcies. The result is that a few major companies that have been following the rules are rising to the top, while simultaneously becoming the targets of the other, less scrupulous players.

With millions invested in tracking systems and system monitors by the top firms, some of the smaller players and criminal elements find it easier to steal what’s been developed rather than build them themselves. The same holds true for pilfering affiliate and advertising contacts, creative creation methods, customer data and back office operations.

Click fraud, cookie stuffing and numerous other schemes have been used against the online advertising agencies for years; but as industry players focus on stopping these methods, the criminals will find other ways to game the systems. Among those ways are social engineering, hacking and outright theft.

As is the case with any industry that grows from its infancy and represents a very large cash flow, online advertising companies need to take steps to protect themselves from both internal and external threats. In order to do this, they must first understand what the threats are, and what needs protecting.

One of the more damaging threats that exist relates to the schemes run by the affiliates or independent marketers, such as cookie stuffing or click fraud, but simply focusing on those threats is being myopic. Advertising agencies need to ask themselves “if I was just starting out, what would I need, and where could I get it?”

Once they answer that question, the following question is “how are we protecting what we have?” This does not mean just doors and locks;, it means policies, systems and consequences. Security means understanding the threats and risks, and then either accepting them, stopping them, defending against them or ensuring against them.

Companies need to focus on what makes them differentce from their competition.

Consider the following:

1. Access to your business contacts, namely affiliates and advertisers
2. The technology that makes their company move.
3. Business contracts, agreements and negotiations.
4. Personnel, skill sets and expertise
5. Back-end customer data

If any one of these sets of data is stolen, the impact to the advertising agency could be catastrophic. The information could be used to win over contracts, or it could be used to find a new way to manipulate the companies lead tracking system and increase an affiliate’s profits.

For companies to grow and truly court the top tier 1 advertisers, they are going to have to prove to those advertisers that they are safe and secure. This means being compliant with all laws, have a robust anti-fraud and anti -abuse system, and demonstrate their data, systems and operations are secure. Coke would not launch a new promotion through online advertising if a representative from Pepsi could figuratively waltz into the ad agency and figure out the strategy.

What advertiser is going to believe, or for that matter sign on with, a company that claims they have the best targeting algorithm in the industry, but has nothing in place to protect it?





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