A disturbing photo of a bloodied Anthony Albanese is among a slew of fake photos 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 advertisements featuring the Australian Prime Minister and celebrities such as Richard Branson and Russell Brand.
The image of Mr Albanese shows open wounds on his face, accompanied by the caption: ‘Now we know the rumors are true’.
Similar scams involving Virgin founder Richard Branson and former comedian Russell Brand include the tempting caption: “Is this the end of his career?”
The scam ads featuring doctored photos of Albanians were linked to a fake Nine News article The era.
The headline read: ‘A new project called Quantum Ai has been launched, offering every Australian the chance to earn as much as $25,000 AUD a month, starting with just $400!’
Victims who clicked on the article were then encouraged to provide personal information to sign up for the fake investment project.
Sergeant Alexander Kazagrandi from the Australian Federal Police’s Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Center said once Australians registered their email address or phone number, they were typically asked to make a small initial deposit.
A disturbing photo of a bloodied Anthony Albanese is among a slew of fake photos of high-profile figures and celebrities being used in a sophisticated online clickbait scam
Similar scam involving Virgin founder Richard Branson (top left)
‘Sometimes they are transferred to another agent or [the] so-called manager and was pushed to invest more and more as time went on,” he told the publication.
“These relationships or these interactions can last for days or several months.
“Sometimes they even offer the victim a small amount of money to withdraw [give people the impression they have had] these significant revenues…unfortunately, once the rug is pulled out, it is often very difficult to get that money back.”
The ads featuring Mr Albanese were served through Google’s third-party ad placements on major news publishers’ websites, including the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Experts believe the holiday scams are used to trick unwitting victims into clicking on their attention-seeking headlines.
The bad actors also choose holidays to promote their fake ads because they know platforms like Google will have skeleton security staff.
Jerome Dangu, a global computer security expert, told The Age that the scam ads looked like they belonged to a fraudulent ad group called ‘eGobbler’.
The group got its name after running a malicious advertising campaign during Thanksgiving seven years ago.
Similar scams involving Virgin founder Richard Branson and former comedian Russell Brand include the tempting caption: ‘is this the end of his career?’
Mr Dangu said the company used enticing and sensational images of household names because it got people to click on them 30 times more than normal digital ads.
“A normal click rate is 0.1 percent or less, but because it is so shocking it leads to click rates of 3 percent,” he told the newspaper.
“We have tens of millions of people who saw the ads… so ultimately maybe a million people end up on that page.”
The scammers bypass Google’s strict advertising rules by pretending to be a legitimate company with real ads.
But once the company builds trust, it pushes its bad ads, driving traffic to its site.
By the time Google can block it, the company will have seen hundreds of thousands of visitors.
A Google spokesperson said their team is still investigating how many Australians were exposed to doctored images of Mr Albanese.
“Advertisements that exploit the names and likenesses of public figures for financial gain are unacceptable,” the spokesperson told the publication.
‘If we find ads that violate our policies, we will remove them. The advertisement in question was removed within hours.’