AutoURL : automatic URL tracking to identify rogue advertising : this thesis is submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Information Sciences in Software Engineering, School of Engineering and Advanced Technology (S.E.A.T.) at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Abstract

Maintaining Cyber Security has been one of the biggest challenges of a modern era which has seen the extensive emergence of internet advertisers, and in which some promote their malicious contents through rogue websites. Internet rogue advertisers penetrate through cybercrime in various forms of advertisement banners which are displayed within any parts of a website. Tracking these rogue advertisers is important to the Cyber Security cause, where in an ideal scenario individuals are exposed to correct information as is their basic right, along with their reaction toward the sensitivity of any content. In the past manual tracking has been the commonest method of checking but in some cases manual tracking could fail, other than time parameters the accuracy is also questionable, the solution to this the concept of Automatic URL Tracking. This thesis represents an analytical method of Automatic URL Tracking, according to this approach, where various pages are checked for advertising banners, these are clicked until the final URL or its destination is reached. To achieve various concrete results a significant work has been done to develop an Automatic URL Tracking Software which is run when connected through internet while holding the reported URLs databases where each of these are tracked to its final destination. The Automatic URL Tracking Software was run for the total of 2500 URL samples, upon manually tracking these URLs the two processes showed 87.7 % agreement which can be reliable result considering the presence of various blocking techniques adopted by hosting sites and site developers but there are chances for further development where the application is enhanced specifically to overcome these obstacles. Automatic URL Tracking overcomes the difficulties and challenges of manual tracking, allowing larger data volumes to be tested, identified and verified, but having said that it also comes with the challenges of rapidly changing internet technologies, in which more comprehensive strategies need to be built to overcome this challenge.