Dismantled advertising fraud operation 3ve

Operation 3ve, considered one of the largest online advertising fraud networks, was dismantled following the arrest of 8 suspects on 27 November 2018. Among the 13 charges against them are electronic fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering and conspiracy.

This has been made possible by research conducted jointly by several police organizations and cybersecurity companies, where it was discovered that the criminal group behind 3ve had managed to infect about 1.7 million systems with Boaxxe/Miuref/Methbot and Kovter malware, generating 10,000 fraudulent domains that, in turn, originated 12,000 million requests for fraudulent clicks, forcing companies to pay millions of dollars for advertisements that were allegedly never seen by real users.