HUMAN Security has announced the disruption of NewsJunkie, a coordinated connected TV (CTV) advertising fraud operation uncovered by its Satori Threat Intelligence and Research Team. The campaign generated large volumes of invalid advertising traffic by spoofing connected TV devices and disguising fraudulent inventory as premium CTV content, highlighting growing supply chain security challenges in digital advertising.
HUMAN Security's Satori Threat Intelligence and Research Team has identified and disrupted NewsJunkie, a coordinated operation that generated fraudulent connected TV advertising inventory by impersonating legitimate devices and premium streaming content.
According to the company, the campaign exploited structural limitations within the connected TV advertising ecosystem, where many advertising environments operate without JavaScript-based detection capabilities, reducing the visibility available for identifying fraudulent traffic.
At its highest activity levels, NewsJunkie generated between hundreds of millions and nearly two billion invalid CTV bid requests per seller each day.
Researchers identified two primary techniques used by the operation:
These techniques allowed fraudulent advertising impressions to closely resemble authentic premium CTV inventory, making detection significantly more challenging.
"NewsJunkie reinforces a reality security leaders are increasingly confronting: invalid CTV traffic is not simply an impression-quality issue—it’s a supply chain security challenge," said Will Herbig, Senior Director, Media Research at HUMAN. "Organizations need visibility across every intermediary involved in a transaction to identify hidden risks, validate trusted pathways, and prevent sophisticated operations from exploiting gaps in the ecosystem."
According to HUMAN, identifying the operation required analyzing the complete digital advertising supply chain rather than relying on individual detection signals.
Researchers examined technical characteristics within bid requests to determine whether traffic patterns were consistent with legitimate users watching content on real connected TV devices.
The company says this end-to-end visibility enabled its researchers to identify coordinated fraudulent behavior that would have been difficult to detect using isolated indicators.
"NewsJunkie is a reminder that today's most sophisticated ad fraud operations can blend into legitimate-looking supply chains," said Lindsay Kaye, Vice President of Threat Intelligence at HUMAN. "What made this scheme particularly challenging was that no single signal revealed the fraud. As threat actors continue exploiting the complexity of CTV, visibility into the full supply chain is no longer optional; it's imperative for identifying coordinated fraud and protecting the integrity of digital advertising."
HUMAN confirmed that the NewsJunkie operation has been disrupted and that customers using Ad Fraud Defense and Ad Fraud Sensor are protected against the identified threat.
The company's Satori research team continues monitoring the threat actors for potential adaptations, including the use of new application identifiers, device signatures, and seller accounts that could be used to re-establish fraudulent operations.
HUMAN Security is the global leader in Agentic Trust, the emerging discipline that informs and governs how humans, bots, and AI agents operate online. For more than a decade, HUMAN has specialized in understanding and mitigating automated traffic risk at internet scale, helping enterprises, platforms, and digital ecosystems verify digital interactions and establish trust across the customer journey, from first ad impression to final transaction. Powered by one of the world’s largest behavioral signal networks, HUMAN analyzes over a quadrillion digital interactions each year to help customers distinguish legitimate activity from fraud, abuse, and automated manipulation so trusted interactions can move forward with confidence.
HUMAN delivers a unified trust layer for the agentic era—bridging security, marketing, and media with shared visibility, governance, and confidence in a world where humans and AI agents operate side by side. Learn more at humansecurity.com.
TechIntelPro empowers B2B technology decision-makers with the latest industry trends, deep insights, leadership perspectives and actionable intelligence to drive both organizational and professional milestones, and thrive on the tech pulse.