3VE3ve

3ve, pronounced as “Eve”, was a botnet that was halted in late 2018. 3ve utilized the malware packages Boaxxe and Kovter to infect a network of PCs. They were spread through emails and fake downloads, and once infected, the bots would generate fake clicks on online advertisements. The clicks would be used on fake websites, which hosted ads and then absorbed the ad revenue from the false impressions. Bots were able to mimic desktop and mobile traffic in order to evade detection, and went through several evolutions of tactics to grow over time. At its peak, the botnet controlled more than one million residential and corporate IP-addresses, largely within Europe and North America.