any one face the same problem today??
it happened at 3:00am ~

what?

Dear Publisher,

We are writing to notify you of a malware situation that has come to our attention very recently – specifically to tell you what we know, what we’re doing, and what you can do to help.

For clarity, by way of preview:

We do not believe this situation has affected, nor is affecting your actual revenue generation , but
We do believe the situation might (or might not) have created some volume of “artificial impressions” in your reports from LifeStreet, RockYou, Cubics and other ad networks – impressions which do not generate revenue - thereby creating the “illusion” of a lower reported CPM than normal. As a result, you might see “more impressions” in your ad network reporting system the last couple / few days than you do in your internal reporting system for some number of days, perhaps starting around January 15th. For clarity, however, we reiterate our belief that your actual revenue generation (and reported revenue) is continuing as normal on the impressions that you (…and not the malware…) are sending to LifeStreet using your ad tags.

Below is a summary of what we know, what we are doing, and how you can help.

WHAT WE KNOW
We recently learned that this malware which was appears to have started gaining distribution in early January, has started sending artificial impressions to several ad networks for at least the last several days. It appears these bad actors were originally primarily using only “their own” ad tags (i.e. ad tags created in their own ad network accounts) to create these impressions and get paid for resulting revenue. We immediately shut these accounts down when we detected this.

Subsequently, it appears they ramped up efforts to try to resume and obscure their activity by taking other publisher ad tags across many ad networks, and started generating ever-higher volumes of “artificial impressions” (e.g. off screen & the like) using ad tags from many different publishers instead of just their own. One theory on “how” the bad actors accomplished this is perhaps they copied ad tags directly from various Facebook applications like yours. It appears that many of the users affected by this malware are geographically located in the Asia Pacific and Eastern European areas.

We took steps to block this suspicious behavior at approximately 5PM Pacific Time last night, and it appears these guys circumvented this block around 1AM Pacific Time today, and in turn we took measures to block the activity again this morning. If you were affected by this situation you might see overall impressions in your reports drop significantly at approximately 5PM Pacific time yesterday, then ramp up at about 1AM Pacific Time today, and subsequently start ramping down again in the mid-morning hours Pacific time.

All of this said, please understand that notwithstanding the possible presence of some artificially inflated impressions (and artificially depressed CPM’s) you might have seen over the last few days, we have been actively protecting your actual revenue through this process.

WHAT WE ARE DOING NEXT

We are taking many steps to monitor and respond to the situation, including:

Identifying new sources of these artificial impressions & blocking them,
Reaching out to Facebook, to see if we can be helpful to them regarding this situation, and,
Finalizing QA of new JavaScript-based ad tags for your use. When these are available (soon), those of you who do not develop in FBML will be able to migrate to these JavaScript ad tags which in turn will allow for:
New & improved ad units, capable of generating more revenue through more creative capability (e.g. new creative effects like canvas effects, point-roll style effects et al, always subject to following FB rules of course…), and,
Improved security & response capability against a malware situation like the current circumstance.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Here is how you can be helpful:

If you see any odd behavior or numbers that are not consistent with what has been described in this email, please alert us so we can learn more & continue to respond
When we reach out to you with the new JavaScript ad tags, please deploy them as soon as possible thereafter (…and if you still develop in FBML, please consider migrating away from FBML so you too can benefit from the new / smarter JavaScript ad tags)


CONCLUSION

We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion this situation may be causing you. But once again, please know we have protected your revenue throughout this process.

Up a level, please know that you are in great hands here at LifeStreet, because LifeStreet literally exists to protect app developers like you and make money for app developers like you. You have given us the privilege & high honor of serving you, and we take this responsibility very seriously. That’s why we LifeStreeters come to work each day thinking about what we can do today to continue to protect app developers like you, and how we can generate & grow ever-more revenue for app developers like you.

In closing, we thank you for your trust and confidence - and we thank you for your business.

Very sincerely yours,


Paul Kennedy
Co-founder & VP Business Operations

any other option?? except for rockyou ....

the problem is solved =] Thx