Anúncio Falso

Fraudsters are using Google Ads to clone advertisements

branddi · Published on January 27, 2025 · Updated on April 10, 2026

Fraudsters and scammers are constantly looking for new ways to promote and increase the visibility of their scams. After all, this is how they manage to reach an increasing number of victims.

However, if you think that consumers are the only ones who suffer from these actions, you are very mistaken: your brand can also lose a lot by being associated with these frauds.

And that is why it is so important to keep your company aware of new market schemes, thus protecting not only your reputation, but also your consumers.

Come with Branddi and understand more about the new Google Ads scam and how to protect your business against it!

What is this new scam?

In the middle of January this year, researchers at Malwarebytes noticed an increase in the number of scams with false advertisements published on Google Ads. The focus of these actions was one: obtaining passwords, credentials and other sensitive data.

To do this, scammers use phishing to emulate advertiser accounts on Google Ads, redirecting victims who click on ads to fake pages from established brands. All this through a WebSocket focused on 2FA codes.

In other words, these fraudsters buy ads on Google Ads to display apparently legitimate links in Google search results. As a result, the fraudster gains access not only to login credentials but also additional security data such as authentication codes, completely compromising the victim's account. data-rt-type="image" data-rt-align="fullwidth" data-rt-max-width="992px">Web imageThe choice of Google Ads for this type of scam is not random. This is because the platform offers broad visibility and allows precise targeting, which makes it easier for scammers to reach large audiences with deceptive ads. However, scammers take advantage of loopholes in the verification processes to post malicious ads, often using popular keywords or keywords related to well-known brands.

How could this scam affect your brand?

This scam, at first glance, appears to only affect consumers and users. However, this is not true.

After all, when a scam of this type uses your brand's name or visual identity to deceive users, the impact on the company's reputation and profitability can be significant, with results such as:

• Loss of consumer trust;
• Additional customer support costs;

But how to do this?

The time has come to protect your brand against phishing

Although Google is, yes, actively working to prevent fraud in their platforms, it is undeniable that cases like this will continue to be reproduced, after all, scammers are always finding new loopholes and developing more sophisticated techniques to deceive users and companies.

And that is why, to guarantee the growth and digital protection of your brand, you need more than trust in the platforms' measures: it is essential to adopt active and preventive strategies that keep your brand one step ahead of scammers.

And that is where we, at Branddi, we're here: keep following our content and understand how blindagem marketing can transform the digital presence of your business!

Back to blog