LIMASSOL, Cyprus, Feb. 17, 2026 — Adex, the anti-fraud and traffic-quality platform under AdTech Holding, has detected advertising campaigns exploiting third-level subdomains linked to government, municipal, and educational bodies. These campaigns hosted iGaming landing pages without permission from the actual domain owners.

The impacted domains included assets belonging to Indonesian public authorities and accredited educational institutions, as well as domains tied to U.S. universities and private-sector entities in other regions. These domains were woven into the campaign infrastructure to redirect traffic to commercial iGaming material.

This activity was discovered through standard monitoring. After identifying the issue, Adex performed a technical inquiry, paused the related campaigns, and asked the advertisers for clarification and documentation. The advertisers either failed to respond or provided explanations that did not justify the domain usage.

Technical analysis

The investigation concluded that several incidents matched the pattern of subdomain takeovers, a vulnerability listed by OWASP as A05: Security Misconfiguration. This happens when a dormant subdomain stays connected via CNAME to a deleted external cloud resource, letting third parties claim the endpoint and host content on a trusted domain without the owner’s knowledge.

The abuse was primarily seen within third-level domain structures. In other instances, the activity seemed to stem from obsolete CMS setups, web server flaws, or stolen admin credentials, highlighting deficiencies in infrastructure management.

Risk implications and preventive guidance

The unauthorized commercial exploitation of institutional domains creates reputational, regulatory, and security hazards for domain owners. This case illustrates how neglected DNS settings and infrastructure vulnerabilities can expose high-trust domains to third-party abuse, stressing the need for constant monitoring and preventive measures in advertising environments.

Media Contact:
Mikhail Goryunov
+35797767567

SOURCE Adex