Email Protection and Security Awareness Programs have raised the bar to make more difficult for offenders to cheat users on clicking over phishing or scam links. Some alternative techniques have arisen such as sending them through Direct Messages in Social Media networks. A remarkable technique is being profited to reach them directly thanks to a paid feature, advertisements.
AdTech stack is a complex and dynamic environment composed by providers, brokers, and publishers. Transparency regulations have forced providers to share information about advertisements running across their platforms in a database known as AdsLibrary, providing information about their audience target, impact, and requestor.
This talk describes how to collect information about online ads using APIs facing well-known AdsLibraries from Meta, Bing, and Google combined with live data collection using scrapping techniques. A new open-source OSINT tool (in beta stage) named “toADS” to support the collection and analysis of online ads for hunting and investigative purposes.
SANS Open-Source Intelligence Summit 2024
toADS: Hunting Online Advertisements
Carlos Fragoso, Associate Instructor
View upcoming Summits: www.sans.org/u/DuS