Lock in a year of Digiday+ for 35% less. Ends May 29.
The spectrum of malvertising runs on an axis from irritation to destruction. At its more benign end are ads that bob and weave on screen, frustrating the users chasing them away. At its most malicious, ransomware deployments—think WannaCrys and Anglers—reach up from the dark web to block access to a computer’s operating system, trading a users’ freedom for the right Bitcoin price.
The cost of these attacks is not trivial. In 2015, Interactive Advertising Bureau pinned the total cost of combating malvertising at $1.1 billion, with a total cost of $8.2 billion from vulnerabilities in the digital ad supply chain.
Programmatic advertising has a lot to do with it. “Most of the companies that are in our world don’t sell close to 100 percent of their ad inventory,” said Tobias Bennett, head of programmatic at the Local Media Consortium, a network of more than 75 companies including Tronc and McClatchy who collectively run more than 1,700 websites. “They sell 30 to 50 percent of their inventory, and that’s on the higher end. They rely on this lower third-party fill.”
Once a publisher’s remnant inventory trickles far enough down the waterfall, it can fall prey to the malware hackers that make their scant living off of their dark exploits. The funny thing is, there’s no Hollywood-style mad hacker flow-state-coding his way onto a computer, just a motivated con artist who can follow instructions.
To learn more about just what it takes to hack into a publisher platform and how publishers can keep their readers safe, download the guide now.
More from Digiday
Digiday+ Research: The marketers’ 2026 guide to a shifting CTV landscape, including YouTube, Peacock and Roku
Digiday+ Research’s fifth annual report analyzes the state of ad-supported streaming and the challenges those companies pose to marketers.
U.S. CPG manufacturers are sitting on excess capacity, which could be a boon for brands
Keychain’s, CPG Intelligence Report showed that one major theme companies are grappling with is significant overcapacity.
Future of TV Briefing: The upfront is overtaking streaming’s programmatic marketplace
This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how major TV and streaming ad sellers are seeing upfront deals represent a larger share of their programmatic businesses.