A disturbing picture of a bloodied Anthony Albanese is among a slew of fake pictures of high-profile figures and celebrities being used in a sophisticated online clickbait scam.
Millions of people around the world have been exposed to similar fraudulent adverts featuring the likes of the Australian Prime Minister and celebrities including Richard Branson and Russell Brand.
The image of Mr Albanese features open wounds on his face accompanied by the caption, ‘Now we know that the rumours are true’.
Similar scams featuring Virgin founder Richard Branson and former comedian Russell Brand include the enticing caption, ‘Is it the end of his career?’
The scam ads featuring doctored pictures of Albanese were linked to a fake Nine News article, reported The Age.
The headline read: ‘A new project called Quantum Ai has launched, offering every Australian the opportunity to earn an impressive $25,000 AUD per month, starting with just $400!’
Victims who clicked on the article were then encouraged to hand over personal details to sign up for the fake investment project.
Sergeant Alexander Kazagrandi, with the Australian Federal Police’s Joint Policing Cybercrime Co-ordination Centre, said once Australians registered their emails or phone numbers, they were typically then asked to make a small initial deposit.
A disturbing picture of a bloodied Anthony Albanese is among a slew of fake pictures of high profile figures and celebrities being used in a sophisticated online clickbait scam
Similar scams featuring Virgin founder Richard Branson (top left)
‘Sometimes, they’ll be handed over to another agent or [the] so-called manager and prompted to invest more and more as time goes on,’ he told the publication.
‘These relationships or these interactions can last days or several months.
‘Sometimes, they will even offer the victim a small amount to withdraw to [give people the impression they have had] these significant earnings… unfortunately, when the rug is pulled, it’s quite often very difficult to recover those funds.’
The ads featuring Mr Albanese were served up by Google’s third party advertising placements featured on websites of major news publishers, including the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Experts believe the scams are pushed during holiday seasons to dupe unwitting victims into clicking on their attention-seeking headlines.
The bad actors also choose public holidays to push their bogus ads because they know platforms like Google will have skeleton security staff working.
Jerome Dangu, a global computer security expert, told The Age that the scam ads looked as if they belonged to a fraudulent advertising group dubbed ‘eGobbler’.
The group was given its moniker after it ran a malicious advertising campaign during Thanksgiving seven years ago.
Similar scams featuring Virgin founder Richard Branson and former comedian Russell Brand include the enticing caption, ‘is it the end of his career?’
Mr Dangu said the company used alluring and sensationalised images of household names because it drove people to click on them 30 times the rate they would click on normal digital ads.
‘A normal click rate is 0.1 per cent or less, but because it’s so shocking, it drives click rates of 3 per cent,’ he told the newspaper.
‘We have tens of millions of people that saw the ads… so you end up with maybe a million people that got to that page.’
The scammers outwit Google’s strict advertising rules by posing as a legitimate company with real ads.
But once the company has built trust it pushes its bad ads, driving traffic to its site.
By the time Google is able to block it, the company has seen hundreds of thousands of visitors.
A Google spokesperson said their team were still investigating how many Australians were exposed to doctored images of Mr Albanese.
‘Ads that exploit the names and likenesses of public figures for financial gain are unacceptable,’ the spokesperson told the publication.
‘When we find ads that violate our policies, we will remove them. The ad in question was removed within hours.’
