Pushpaganda: AI-Generated Scareware Hits Google Discover
A large-scale ad fraud and scareware campaign dubbed 'Pushpaganda' has been uncovered exploiting Google Discover by using AI-generated content to poison search discovery surfaces and lure users into enabling malicious push notifications. At its peak the operation generated 240 million bid requests across 113 domains in a single week, demonstrating how AI-generated disinformation can be weaponised as an automated delivery mechanism for financial fraud. The campaign highlights the growing abuse of generative AI to scale deceptive content operations against trusted platform surfaces.