Stolen Meta and Google ad accounts are worth more than the money they hold Ad account theft, the systematic hijacking of Meta Business Manager and Google Ads accounts, has grown into a commodity-driven cybercrime economy complete with tiered pricing, escrow services, and money-back warranties for stolen accounts. Public reporting on this topic tends to focus on drained ad budgets, but according to Mimecast, that’s often a short-lived gain for attackers. “Both platforms operate on a pre-loaded credit or card-on-file model. Campaigns spend continuously until a budget cap, or the account holder intervenes. A newly compromised account with a $5,000 monthly budget can be drained in hours,” Mimecast explained. “Legitimate ad spend history raises account trust scores, meaning aged, active…