New Variant of LeoTerra Fraud Tool Spoofs IoT Devices: DoubleVerify

DoubleVerify’s fraud lab detected a new variant of LeoTerra, the connected TV advertising fraud scheme, that impersonates IoT devices and hides fraudulent behavior, said the digital media measurement software platform on Wednesday. The three LeoTerra variants detected thus far have spoofed more than 92 million devices during 2022's first half and up to 3.5 million device signatures a day, it said. LeoTerra is a server-side ad insertion tool that fraudsters use to spoof large numbers of devices, it said. Bad actors use online device information sources, where they download lists of devices and incorporate the device information inside their falsified ad requests, it said: “This makes it appear as if their fraudulent traffic is coming from millions of different devices.”