Criminals exploit Apple’s iCloud Private Relay in ad fraud scheme

An army of bots currently pretending to be Apple users is surfing the web and “looking” at ads by exploiting Apple’s iCloud Private Relay, according to new research.

Apple has said that the tool has “built-in fraud detection” and that digital advertising platforms can trust it, but the researchers say the fraud has only increased in the months since they first reported it to the company.
Thomas Germain for Gizmodo:

The new report finds that criminals are exploiting Apple’s Private Relay tool, a feature available on on Apple devices for users who subscribe to iCloud+. Turn it on, and Private Relay will hide your web browsing and assign you a dummy IP address to help stop companies from tracking you. Pixalate, the ad tech firm that authored the study, released Wednesday, says the problem will cost US advertisers an estimated $65 million in 2022 alone. The study finds that 90% of web traffic that looks like it’s coming from Private Relay is actually fraudulent.
The ad fraud is widespread, but the study found that the bots tend to cluster around groups of domains, and nine websites that display ads are affected in particular, including the websites for E! Online, ESPN, Major League Baseball, NBC News, and Weather.com.
Pixalate first reported on this problem in August, but the firm says the amount of fraud is accelerating. The problem is so bad that Shetty advised ad tech companies and websites to consider blocking Private Relay traffic altogether until there’s a better solution.

MacDailyNews Note: According to Apple, “Private Relay is designed to ensure only valid Apple devices and accounts in good standing are allowed to use the service. Websites that use IP addresses to enforce fraud prevention and anti-abuse measures can trust that connections through Private Relay have been validated at the account and device level by Apple.” More info here.
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