Defending The Unpredictable with Unified Mobile App Defence

Story by: Chandni U

Mobile ad fraud continues to be a major issue for marketers, leading to significant financial losses, wasted advertising budgets, and distorted campaign data. Mobile app security threats add another layer of risk, targeting sensitive user information and creating vulnerabilities that could harm consumer trust. Addressing these threats requires a proactive, layered approach that focuses on both fraud prevention and data security. 

“There is no silver bullet to stop mobile ad fraud, it requires a comprehensive mobile app security model across the entire marketing funnel. The best defence against mobile fraud is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Mobile brands should use a unified mobile app defence automation platform to stop mobile fraud at the source,” says Brian C Reed , SVP of Marketing at Appdome .

Brian leads GTM strategy and partnerships at Appdome, working with top-tier marketers, account leaders, and cybersecurity experts to advance mobile app security. As an ambassador in the cybersecurity and app development communities, he’s known for building impactful partnerships and championing innovative protections for mobile users.

Talking to Martechvibe, Brian discusses how brands can monitor, measure, and future-proof their mobile apps against potential security threats and vulnerabilities.

Excerpts from the interview:

How can marketers deal with ad fraud?

There are five different types of mobile ad fraud that marketers must deal with.

Click fraud: In click fraud, perpetrators generate fake clicks on mobile ads to make it seem like there is genuine user interest. This can be done by automated bots or even human click farms. Advertisers are the primary victims as they pay for each click, which may not lead to actual user engagement or conversions.

Impression fraud: Impression fraud involves creating fake ad impressions, artificially inflating the perceived reach of a mobile ad campaign. Similar to click fraud, this is often carried out through automated scripts or bots. Advertisers again bear the brunt, paying for impressions that don’t reach genuine users.

Install fraud: Install fraud occurs when fake installations of mobile apps are reported. Fraudsters may use methods like click injection or device emulation to make it appear as if an ad led to a genuine app install. App developers and advertisers are directly impacted, as they pay for installations that may not result from actual user interest.

Attribution fraud: Attribution fraud manipulates the attribution process, where the source that gets credit for driving a mobile app install is falsely claimed. This can involve click spoofing or other deceptive tactics. Ad networks, affiliate marketers, and app developers suffer as they may allocate resources based on incorrect attribution data, leading to misplaced investments.

Geo fraud: Geo fraud happens in combination with the above-mentioned fraud. Key to effective mobile marketing campaigns is engaging with your target audience in the right location. Fraudsters will use different methods to hide their true location to commit click, impression or install fraud and dilute the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. 

There is no silver bullet to stop mobile ad fraud, it requires a comprehensive mobile app security model across the entire marketing funnel. Most ad fraud comes from bots, and we can all agree that bots don’t buy things. All they do is increase the cost of marketing campaigns, a cost which needs to be borne by somebody, in most cases the consumer, by increasing the price.

Recommendation: Mobile brands should use a unified mobile app defense automation platform for in-app anti-fraud mobile protections, real-time threat/fraud intelligence and mobile XDR to quickly detect and respond to ad fraud in order to maximise their marketing campaigns, prevent financial loss, and ensure that their ads are seen by the intended target audience in the intended location. 

What best practices do you recommend to secure user data in mobile apps?

There are five key defences that app makers can put in place to secure user data in mobile apps. 

Secure authentication. In order to ensure good data protection in mobile apps, app makers should first ensure secure authentication to the app, including use of multi-factor authentication (MFA). 

Mobile data encryption. It is critical to encrypt all user data in mobile apps including data-at-rest, data-in-use and data-in-transit using strong encryption algorithms, preferably AES-256. 

Prevent data harvesting. In addition to encrypting data stored in the mobile apps, app makers should also prevent data harvesting via keyloggers and app overlay attacks.

Mobile privacy and Data Loss Prevention (DLP). Mobile brands can ensure mobile user privacy by preventing screensharing, blocking screenshots and on Android minimising the allowed permissions. They can also prevent data loss by stopping copy/paste of data from the mobile app to other locations outside the app.

Ensuring the integrity of the mobile operating system. Best practices also recommend that mobile apps should only run on devices where the integrity of the operating system is not compromised. This means mobile apps should detect and prevent from running on jailbroken iOS and rooted Android devices. 

Recommendation: Mobile brands should use a mobile app defence automation platform to ensure that they can build comprehensive protections into their mobile apps quickly and have the flexibility to easily update their defences to be ready for any new threats and attacks.

ALSO READ: How to Protect Your 5-Star App Store Reviews

How can brands monitor and measure the impact of ad fraud on their mobile marketing campaigns?

Mobile ad fraud leads to wasted budgets, inaccurate performance metrics, and skewed marketing strategies. Real-time mobile XDR allows brands to monitor for and detect the methods and tools used by mobile ad fraud. Understanding these methods and tools is the first step to building a comprehensive defence against ad fraud. Such a comprehensive defence would require a combination of:

Block auto-clickers. Detect and protect mobile apps against automated click bots, non-human patterns, and out-of-context sources. This can go a long way in preventing ad fraud. 

Block emulators, simulators and app players. Automated mobile ad fraud is much more effective when fraudsters use emulators, simulators and app players. By ensuring that their mobile app can only run on real devices, mobile brands can limit the effectiveness of automated ad fraud tools.

Block virtualised environments. Mobile brands should also prevent their apps from running in secondary spaces, virtual environments or virtual devices. 

Prevent app cloning. Mobile brands can use anti-tampering defenses to ensure that fraudsters cannot clone their mobile app and make ad fraud easier.

Recommendation: The best defence against mobile fraud is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Mobile brands should use a unified mobile app defence automation platform to stop mobile fraud at the source. Using Appdome, mobile brands can use mobile XDR to detect the use of the methods and tools used by fraudsters and build pre-emptive and defensive protections into their mobile apps in minutes, preventing fraud and creating better experiences for marketers and consumers alike.

How can brands future-proof their mobile apps against potential security threats and vulnerabilities?

There are two key requirements to future-proof mobile apps against the ever-changing threat landscape.

Detailed and real-time threat intelligence. Mobile brands need to have visibility into all the attacks and threats against their mobile apps in production. Mobile brands need a mobile XDR that is fully integrated in their mobile app defense platform so that brands can detect and respond to new threats quickly, before they can be launched at scale against their mobile consumers and their mobile business. 

Be ready to quickly update security models. Once mobile brands detect a new threat in their mobile XDR, cyber, fraud and dev teams need to be able to quickly and easily update their security and anti-fraud models to defend against these new threats. Moreover, the bad guys use automation to attack mobile apps, so the only way mobile brands can stay ahead of the bad guys is to use a unified mobile app defence automation platform to quickly upgrade their security and anti-fraud models in minutes, without developers having to do any work. 

Recommendation: The ever-changing threat landscape makes an effective defence virtually impossible without using a unified mobile app defence automation platform that allows mobile brands to protect from the most common threats in the industry today, and monitor and respond to new threats by quickly and easily building new defences then releasing them to production without impacting the existing developer workflows and release schedules.

What technologies is Appdome leveraging to enhance mobile app security?

Appdome is the experience leader in mobile app defense. Our award-winning, and patented, mobile defense platform uses AI-ML to automate the work and complexity out of securing mobile businesses, apps and users.

Mobile brands around the world use Appdome’s no-code, unified mobile app defense automation platform to protect their consumers and mobile business against cyber threats, fraud and malware. With Appdome, mobile brands can choose from over 340 different mobile app security, anti-fraud, anti-bot, anti-malware, geo compliance, social engineering and other defenses to achieve their desired defence model in minutes. The Appdome AI-ML coding engine fully integrates into the existing DevOps workflows developers use today, making mobile app security fast and easy. 

Appdome’s unique “crashless” approach enables mobile apps to detect and respond to threats and attacks while preserving a great user experience critical to ensuring 5-star reviews. Appdome also offers cyber, fraud and dev teams detailed threat and fraud intelligence so that they can quickly detect and respond to new and emerging threats and fraud without delaying new product releases or impacting the end-user experience.