Cookie hijacking is a type of affiliate fraud where the threat actor steals or intercepts the session cookies of your users. Cookies can help determine which affiliates are responsible for driving a particular conversion.
In affiliate marketing, cookies serve as the underlying foundation which allows you to calculate commissions for affiliates. By hijacking cookies, the threat actors can manipulate the overall tracking process. This type of fraudulent action can lead to reputational damage and financial losses.
A major part of your affiliate marketing campaigns relies on cookies to attribute sales to legitimate affiliates. But cookie hijacking can lead to the manipulation of attribution. In this type of affiliate fraud, the nefarious affiliates can delete or modify the original affiliate cookie. It prevents the legitimate affiliate from getting proper credit for their referrals.
Session cookie hijacking distorts your marketing team’s existing attribution model. It can also lead to inaccurate tracking of the high-performing affiliates of your organization. Cookie hijacking makes it challenging for your company to measure the effectiveness of affiliate campaigns.
How Does Cookie Hijacking Contribute to Affiliate Fraud?
Threat actors can steal the tracking cookies used in your affiliate campaigns from legitimate affiliates. By gaining access to the affiliate’s tracking cookie, the threat actor can mimic the actions of the legitimate affiliates.
The sole intention of these unscrupulous affiliates is to trick your affiliate program into misattributing the referrals. Cookie hijacking affects the integrity and trust of your company’s affiliate marketing ecosystem.
They can even get unauthorized access to the accounts of your users. Cookie hijacking can affect the reputation of your brand by extracting sensitive information from the users. In this type of affiliate fraud, the threat actors leverage techniques like click hijacking, session fixation, cross-site scripting, etc., to tarnish your brand reputation.
What is the Purpose of Cookie Hijacking in Affiliate Fraud?
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing model. In this type of marketing model, your brand’s affiliates promote services or products on behalf of your marketing team and earn a commission for each sale.
The main objective of cookie hijacking in affiliate fraud is to steal or manipulate affiliate cookies. It is a practice where threat actors can fraudulently claim credit for referrals and earn the commissions of their legitimate affiliates. Here are some essential aspects to know about the purpose of cookie hijacking in affiliate marketing.
- Redirecting Users to a Malicious Website
By hijacking the cookies, the nefarious affiliates can redirect your unsuspecting users to different product pages or malicious websites. After redirecting users to a similar-looking website, these threat actors can steal the users’ sensitive information.
- Threat Actors Gain Unauthorized Access
Nowadays, affiliates with ill intentions use a cookie hijacking tool to gain unauthorized access to the device of the users. Threat actors can also use adware and malware for packet sniffing. It is used to penetrate the session cookies and gain access.
- The Manipulation of Cookies
The nefarious affiliates can modify the affiliate cookies by replacing the tracking information with their own information. By manipulating the cookies, they can appear as legitimate affiliates and get credit for conversions.
Financial Gain and Cookie Hijacking – Aspects to Know
By successfully hijacking cookies and diverting the commissions, the threat actors can gain illicit financial gains. They make use of malicious cookies to benefit from the efforts of your genuine affiliates. Cookie hijacking in affiliate programs affects the integrity and fairness of your brand’s positive reputation in the market.
Cookie Hijacking Leads to the Erosion of Trust
The legitimate affiliates of your company invest resources and time to promote your brand. When their commissions are stolen by threat actors via cookie hijacking, it creates an unfair competitive environment. A major part of affiliate marketing relies on precise tracking of referrals and trust.
When the nefarious affiliates hijack cookies and claim conversions, it can diminish the earnings of the actual affiliates. It can lead to dissatisfaction and frustration among the legitimate affiliates of your marketing team.
Some Common Ways to Hijack Cookies
The threat actors rely on the following ways to hijack cookies from your affiliate marketing campaigns.
- Session Fixation
It is a type of attack where the threat actors trick your user into using a predetermined session cookie. Once the user logs in, the nefarious affiliates can resume the same session and gain unauthorized access to the account of the users.
- Cross-Site Scripting
In cross-site scripting, the threat actors inject malicious software by running commands. These scripts show a false impression of being an integral part of the browser’s side script. When the user clicks on these scripts, the threat actors can extract their session details, sensitive information, and cookies.
The Role of Virus Positive Technologies (VPT) in Detecting and Preventing Cookie Hijacking
If you are on the lookout for session hijacking prevention, don’t look beyond VPT. You can know the way in which your affiliates are promoting your brand with affiliate fraud solutions from VPT. You can track and analyze each activity of the affiliates with advanced solutions from VPT.