Inside a Dark Adtech Empire Fed by Fake CAPTCHAs
Late last year, security researchers made a startling discovery: Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns were bypassing moderation on social media platforms by leveraging the same malicious advertising technology that powers a sprawling ecosystem of online hucksters and website hackers. A new report on the fallout from that investigation finds this dark ad tech industry is far more resilient and incestuous than previously known. Image: Infoblox. In November 2024, researchers at the security firm Qurium published an investigation into “ Doppelganger,” a disinformation network that promotes pro-Russian narratives and infiltrates Europe’s media landscape by pushing fake news through a network of cloned websites. [...]