Fake virus warning

[GoodCoder]

We display ads in our app using the Google Mobile Ads SDK, served from Google DfP (not AdMob). Now our app has been hit by fake virus warnings, leading to disgruntled users and bad ratings in Google Play.

As far as we can tell it is an ad that opens a URL in the browser without being touched by the user. The web page then displays a fake warning and asks the user to click a button. It's very similar to the screenshot below, just in very poor German and pointing to a URL at androidbus.info. The user didn't dare to press the button. The popup keeps appearing when he uses our app.

Now my questions are:

• Is is possible at all to create an ad that opens an URL without being touched? Can you write Javascript that opens a URL when the ad is loaded or displayed?
• Are there any settings that would prevent an ad from opening a URL without being touched/clicked/tapped?
• How can we figure out where the ad is coming from? Is there something we can do within the app? Or within DfP? (We have configured several networks and would at least to figure out the network it is coming from.)

[Andrew Brogdon (Mobile Ads SDK Team)]

First of all, thanks for reporting this. While we do everything we can to keep bad actors out of our ad market, some do slip through, and getting help from our publishers is immensely helpful in tracking them down.

To answer your questions directly:

Is is possible at all to create an ad that opens an URL without being touched? Can you write Javascript that opens a URL when the ad is loaded or displayed?

This isn't supposed to be possible. Our engineers (if they haven't already started) will figure out how this happened and plug the hole.

Are there any settings that would prevent an ad from opening a URL without being touched/clicked/tapped?

I don't believe there's any settings of yours that could have caused this or would need to be changed.

How can we figure out where the ad is coming from? Is there something we can do within the app? Or within DfP? (We have configured several networks and would at least to figure out the network it is coming from.)

There are a few things that you can do to help us find and remove this ad. If you have seen the ad yourselves, you could use a proxy with your app and send us a log of the requests/responses that took place around when you saw the ad.

If the ad includes an AdChoices logo, you can also tap on it to report the ad directly.

The Ad Quality team has their own processes for removing and blocking improper ads, so it's possible that they're already at work getting rid of this creative. A proxy log or other report would definitely help, if you're able to provide one.

-Andrew

If you don't mind, there are a couple things you do to help me