Dissecting one click frauds

"One Click Fraud" is an online confidence scam that has been plaguing an increasing number of Japanese Internet users, in spite of new laws and the mobilization of police task forces. In this scam, the victim clicks on a link presented to them, only to be informed that they just entered a binding contract and are required to pay a registration fee for a service. Even though no money is legally owed, a large number of users prefer to pay up, because of potential embarrassment due to the type of service "requested" (e.g., pornographic goods). Using public reports of fraudulent websites as a source of data, we analyze over 2,000 reported One Click Frauds incidents. By correlating several attributes (WHOIS data, bank accounts, phone numbers, malware installed...), we discover that a few fraudsters are seemingly responsible for a majority of the scams, and evidence a number of loopholes these miscreants exploit. We further show that, while some of these sites may also b...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: CCS
• Authors: Nicolas Christin, Sally S. Yanagihara, Keisuke Kamataki
• Keywords: CCS 2010, Click Frauds, Online Confidence Scam, Scams, Security Privacy