NEW YORK—CleanTap, a startup that provides CTV ad security technology today released new research revealing critical vulnerabilities in the connected TV (CTV) advertising ecosystem.
The study, "Counterfeit Connected TV and the Digital Ad Industry’s Failure to Detect, Deter, and Disrupt Fraudulent Inventory," demonstrates how counterfeit devices can successfully generate premium ad impressions, passing through buy-side and sell-side platforms, exchanges, ad servers, and other upstream adtech systems, the company said.
Using inexpensive hardware such as Raspberry Pi microcomputers, Android emulators, and HDMI dummy plugs, CleanTap researchers created counterfeit devices that successfully requested and received premium CTV ads from major platforms and providers. Even though their metadata explicitly declared them as bots, the devices were treated as legitimate and served ad campaigns from 54 brands — including nine Fortune 100 companies — through transactions routed across five sell-side and four demand-side platforms.
Key findings include:
- 100% of counterfeit activity was accepted into live auctions, generating thousands of premium ad impressions.
- Ads from Fortune 100 brands were served on counterfeit devices, illustrating the risk to even the most sophisticated advertisers.
“As CTV ad spend continues to surge, the stakes for protecting premium inventory have never been higher,” said Shailin Dhar, co-founder, CleanTap. “Our research shows that today’s safeguards are not enough — counterfeit devices can still slip through undetected. It’s clear the industry needs upstream protections, hardware-based verification, and stronger collaboration across the supply chain.”
CleanTap says verification vendors did not participate in the study, but were independently tested to determine whether they measured the activity correctly downstream. In reviewing CleanTap’s data, DoubleVerify, for example, confirmed that the impressions were measured accurately, classifying them both as invalid traffic (IVT) and as non-CTV devices.
“CleanTap shared its report findings and data with DoubleVerify prior to publication, and we confirmed that the activity was correctly identified and reported by DoubleVerify as invalid traffic and flagged as non-CTV devices,” said Gilit Saporta, VP of Product, Fraud & Quality Analytics at DoubleVerify. “To stay safe from CTV falsification, we recommend that platforms and publishers adopt stronger upstream inventory quality controls, such as pre-bid blocking and filtering, to better safeguard advertisers.”
“DV caught the issue when it occurred and reported it to its clients — which is exactly what we want to see,” said Dhar. “Verification vendors are correctly flagging suspect traffic, but systems across the CTV ecosystem are not fully designed to act on these signals in real time. Platforms and publishers, who ultimately decide what gets transacted, need to consider those signals upstream and ensure cleaner media buying so advertisers don’t have to play whack-a-mole downstream. All platforms should be held to that standard.”
The report, which featured a peer review process inviting all companies cited for technical, collaborative, and constructive feedback regarding the findings and interpretations presented, calls for industry-wide reforms, including:
- Device-level verification at bid request entry.
- Pre-auction filtering for spoofed environments.
- Hardware authentication rather than sole reliance on metadata.
- Greater alignment on supply definitions between buyers and sellers.
The report, "CleanTap Screens for Screens" can be downloaded here.
