Sonobi, an ad-tech company that enables premium publishers and buyers to directly collaborate and build consumer-focused campaigns, announced their integration with cybersecurity company HUMAN, best known for collectively protecting enterprises from bot attacks and fraud. This partnership supports Sonobi’s initiative to provide the largest independent identity-agnostic, omnichannel media platform. HUMAN’s Advertising Integrity, the first MRC accredited solution for pre-bid coverage against Sophisticated Invalid Traffic for CTV, enables Sonobi to grow its presence in CTV with confidence.

Today, the market for advanced TV ad inventory is increasing on a daily basis, and fraudsters are taking note. Compared to other channels, the supply of CTV impressions is still small, but this is rapidly changing as more streaming services become available and more consumers are embracing them. The rapid increase in supply compounded with the lack of transparency surrounding the entire CTV ecosystem and the typically higher CPM rates has created an environment primed for fraudulent activity.

Sonobi partnered with HUMAN to address these CTV challenges. HUMAN verifies the humanity of more than 10 trillion digital interactions per week, offering partners the most comprehensive pre-bid prevention and post-bid detection capabilities to verify the validity of advertising efforts across all channels. The Human Verification Engine™ uses a multilayered detection methodology to spot and stop sophisticated bots and fraud by using technical evidence, continuous adaptation, machine learning, and threat intelligence.

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Fraud and security teams can leverage the privacy-by-design technology to identify threat categories from automated fraud attempts. The HUMAN Dashboard and API allow for a granular understanding of bot interactions, custom reporting, scheduled reporting, and visualizations to understand traffic trends over time. Incorporating technical evidence, machine learning, continuous adaptation of detection techniques, and threat intelligence (courtesy of HUMAN Satori Threat Intelligence and Research Team), enables Advertising Integrity to identify and block bot traffic with the highest degree of accuracy and speed to stay ahead of adversaries.

As an extension of the partnership, Sonobi will also join the Human Collective, HUMAN’s newly launched initiative that brings together players throughout digital advertising to create a collectively protected ecosystem. Last month, HUMAN and members of the Human Collective disrupted PARETO, the most sophisticated connected TV fraud operation ever uncovered. At its height, the botnet used dozens of mobile apps to impersonate or spoof more than 6,000 CTV apps, accounting for an average of 650 million ad requests every day.

Sonobi will leverage both the pre- and post-bid capabilities of HUMAN Advertising Integrity to continually monitor, identify, and prevent sophisticated fraudulent actors. This protection allows Sonobi to offer verified fraud-free supply as they grow their presence in CTV. HUMAN is the first company accredited by MRC for pre-and post-bid protection against SIVT, including within CTV. Together with internal tools and processes, HUMAN Advertising Integrity will authenticate Sonobi’s complete supply to ensure that the activity of bad actors never reaches the platform or any of the direct demand partners.

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“As the evolution of sophisticated fraudulent activity increasingly threatens CTV/OTT monetization, being content with a post-transaction effort to identify fraud is both ineffective and unacceptable,” said Jim McCloskey, VP of Revenue at Sonobi. “Our partnership with HUMAN reinforces Sonobi’s commitment to offering brand-safe, audience-verified inventory across the entirety of our marketplace and provides a critical ally to eradicate fraud across a rapidly growing CTV/OTT marketplace.”

“Connected TV is growing rapidly, and partnerships like this are extremely important in order to create a safer ecosystem,” says Ellie Windle, VP, Global Strategic Partnerships and Alliances. “Sonobi adds more impressions into our detection engine, which strengthens our knowledge of fraud and improves our ability to prevent cybercriminals from stealing ad spend, particularly within the growing CTV environment.”