From Click to Chaos: Bouncing Around in Malicious Traffic Distribution Systems

The report describes how traffic distribution systems (TDSs) are abused by cybercriminals to route victims through large, adaptive redirect networks that deliver scams, phishing, and malware while filtering out researchers. It details three TDS variants (HTTP-based, link-shortener, and DNS CNAME-based), outlines how affiliates target specific victims, and highlights DNS analytics as a scalable method to map, monitor, and block significant portions of these infrastructures to reduce their effectiveness.