Click Forensics today reported that the overall industry average click fraud rate for pay per click (PPC) advertising was 13.8 percent in the first quarter of 2009, down from 17.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 16.3 percent in the first quarter of 2008. The lowest rate in the past four quarters was 16 percent, in the third quarter of 2009. The president of Click Forensics, Tom Cuthbert, said that the drop in click fraud appears to be due to “the drop in keyword Cost Per Clicks (CPCs) and the progress Yahoo! and Google made blocking click fraud from botnet sources”. Click Forensics reported seeing an increase in click fraud from malicious JavaScript programs in the first quarter, with ad networks being especially vulnerable to attacks. Click Forensics gathers it’s data from online advertising campaigns for both large and small companies from both major search providers and over 300 ad networks.