The ABCs of Mobile App Fraud

by Justin Fibich
Region Head, Apsalar
The ABCs of
MOBILE
FRAUD

Copyright © 2016 All rights reserved worldwide. | www.apsalar.com 2
INTRODUCTION
Lots of people are asking questions about mobile fraud these
days. And for good reason. After all, the threat to mobile-first and
other mobile-enabled businesses is growing stronger every day.
Further, ‘mobile fraud’ is a complicated topic, encompassing
a variety of fraud types that have different characteristics
and different victims. Yet fraud is often discussed in
sweeping, general terms. That can cause confusion and
misunderstandings. This paper is designed to give the marketer:
High-level understanding of four of the major types of mobile fraud
The basics of how each type of fraud occurs
Basic and advanced strategies marketers are taking to protect their businesses
Some of these topics extend far beyond the focus of Apsalar’s mobile
app attribution and data management business. But, in our view, all
marketers need to understand the key areas of mobile fraud so that
they can make informed decisions. Therefore, we have created this
”introductory” document to help educate and inform.

Big Temptation
for Fraudsters
Mobile ad spend will hit $40B this year, according to eMarketer. Business
Insider reports that app install spend will top $6.5B. And mcommerce, the
dollar sales of goods and services sold via mobile devices, will surpass
$142B this year, according to Forrester.
What all that adds up to, besides $188.5B, is a huge temptation for bad
actors to perpetrate one or more forms of mobile fraud in order to skim off
a big chunk of that money.
Mobile fraud is, by definition, deliberately robbing a brand, its partners, or
its customers without providing expected value in return. It is deliberate
and criminal. But fraud and the efforts to fight it are by no means simple
or static. Fraudsters are constantly changing their approaches. As good
actors get better at spotting fraud, fraudsters get better at perpetrating it.
Let’s take a look at the four major
mobile fraud types and how you can
protect your business from them

Incentivized Install
FRAUD
Driving users to install your app is the first step in creating a
robust mobile business. People prefer interacting and transacting
in apps – in fact, comScore reports that almost 90% of mobile
time is spent in-app versus on the mobile web. So app installs are
among the most common KP for mobile app marketing efforts.
For years, the app industry was driven by so-called burst
campaigns designed to drive enormous install counts at the time
of an app launch, so that the application would rank high in the
app stores. High ranking drove awareness, which in turn drove
more installs, creating a perfect storm.
That said, this marketing strategy also created an enormous
opportunity for fraud because it led to app business owners caring
most about raw install numbers, not the quality of the users who
installed their apps. And the most common buying methodology
for app advertising, cost per install (CPI), further increased the
incentive to perpetrate install fraud.
(Forensiq, 2015)
$1Billion
Cost of Mobile App
Install Fraud
TYPE ONE

Because marketers prioritized user acquisition cost
and scale over user quality, any media vendor who
could deliver installs at or below target CPI rates was
rewarded with significant media budget, and often
uncapped IOs. This lead to revenue trickling down
through the ecosystem as networks maxed out the
capacity of their own publisher base and often turned
to other media vendors to source additional installs.
The most effective method of driving raw install
volume involved a network or publisher incentivizing
users to install an app by rewarding users with in-
game currency, free WIFI, or extra mobile data
allocations. Some incentivized users download the
app, try it out, and like it. Others install the app to
get their reward, with no intention of actually using
it. Predictably, many users typically fall into the latter
bucket, and incentivized campaigns typically drive lots
of below-average-quality installs.
Depending on campaign goals, low-quality installs
are not always a problem – rational marketers run
incentivized campaigns all the time, recognizing that
a loss of quality is inevitable with quick scale. The key
is: marketers understand the tactics in play, and adjust
CPIs to match expected quality.
Fraud takes place when media vendors (or their
affiliates) obfuscate that their traffic is incentivized. In
this scenario, marketers pay for regular installs, but
are delivered lower quality incentivized installs. This
is a form of fraud – marketers are buying a good, and
being provided with another good of lesser quality.
Incentivized install programs are an appealing arbitrage
scheme – profits are simply a factor of sourcing a CPI
payment higher than the cost of the incentive you’re
offering a user. For example, in developing markets
where users typically buy pre-paid data packages, an
app publisher could offer users $1.00 worth of mobile
data in exchange for installing an app with a $2.00 CPI,
resulting in 50% profits.

Today, as app marketers are increasingly concerned about QUALITY installs, they need solutions to protect themselves against threats
like incentivized install fraud. As with most forms of fraud, detection and prevention rely on a flow of good data that reveals likely in-
stances of fraud. The most common strategies being utilized by marketers to prevent or control incentivized install fraud include:
Common sense: Gone are the days when app marketers were taken in by promises of massive install
counts quickly or at extremely low cost. Today, marketers know that a deal that sounds too good to be true
is likely to result in low quality installs.
Focusing resources on larger/most trusted partners. Larger or niche vertical companies are more likely
to have the resources to detect and prevent fraud. Further, properties like social networks can use their
user account information to help ensure that installs come from legitimate people. At Apsalar, we saw a
393% increase in the number of installs driven by the top ten media partners in 2015 and a 105% increase
for the second ten. The “losers” during that same period? Small, “no-name” players without a quality user
story to tell. While the size of the media company is no guarantee of strong or weak installs, this is clearly
an instance where big brands are gravitating toward big media in order to protect their investments.
Leveraging retention and uninstall data: By comparing the set of users attracted by different media
companies, brands can learn a lot about user quality. Low user retention or high uninstall rates are
increasingly relied-upon signals of possible fraudulent activity.
Diversify key performance indicators (KPIs): Some install campaigns drive users to install the app
plus complete a post-install event, such as a registration process or tutorial completion. You can protect
your business from fraud if you develop KPIs & benchmarks that are harder to predict or unrealistic to
fraudulently incentivize – such as post-install events that are unique to your app, or long-term usage metrics
that occur days or weeks after the install. While the bounty that you have to pay for each user will increase
given the higher bar you have set for user engagement, the cost will likely be well worth it.
Identify sub-publisher level anomalies: Sometimes media network partners may not be aware that their
publishers are perpetrating fraud. By breaking out source- & campaign-level reporting to examine key
metrics at the sub-publisher level, it can be easy to spot pubs that drive abnormally high install counts or
abnormally low quality. Those are clear warning signs of fraud.
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05

Falsified Install
FRAUD
Another kind of install fraud takes place when bad actors fake the signals of a
legitimate app install when no app was (intentionally) installed on a real device.
Fraudsters perpetrate this crime in several ways:
Media or traffic companies create fake
devices and then transmit install signals to
the app marketers. In this scenario, no install
actually takes place because the “devices”
aren’t real. In fact, these install signals often
come from cloud network providers rather
than mobile devices.
Here, a person agrees to download an app,
and another app (or apps) are paired with
the download. The user agrees to install one,
and other apps are secretly installed on their
phone or tablet. Sometimes the unwanted
apps appear on a phone screen, while other
times the apps are hidden and run in the
background – never visible to the user.
Device
Emulators
Piggyback
Installs
Forced Installs
Automatic
Install Cycles
This scenario is similar to the piggyback
instance, except that the apps are installed by
malware without any legitimate install taking
place.
A variant of all of the above tactics, where
an app is installed, uninstalled, reinstalled,
uninstalled, and so forth, driving up huge
install counts on real or simulated devices.
Because of the open nature of the Android
platform, these problems are more common
for Android than iOS.
TYPE TWO

There are a variety of effective ways to detect and thwart instances of falsified install fraud:
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02
03
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Data-driven analysis: Savvy marketers use measures from their marketing and customer data to de-
tect likely fraudulent installs. Typically, these marketers measure the relative instances of multiple KPIs
across partners, campaigns, and even publishers to detect data significantly at variance from normal
patterns. Measures like retention rates, uninstall rates, engagement rates, and conversions are careful-
ly examined across specific time windows in order to identify possible sources of fraud.
Identify sub-publisher level anomalies: Just like with incentivized traffic, fraudsters will often perpe-
trate their crimes through intermediary ad networks or exchanges. Your partners may or may not know
that such fraud is taking place. By breaking down source- & campaign-level reporting to examine key
metrics at the sub-publisher level, it can be easy to spot pubs that drive abnormally high install counts
or abnormally low quality.
Installs from Suspicious IPs: When a large number of installs come from a single IP address or
group of IP addresses, there is a good chance that fraud is taking place. For example, IP addresses for
data centers, cloud infrastructure providers and endpoints should be carefully scrutinized.
APK-Based Installs: In the Android universe, it’s possible to install apps on locations other than
Google Play or the Amazon store Such installs are called “APK Installs. Sometimes brands agree to
this method of distribution. Other times, media companies secretly make apps available on these sites
as a way to jack up install counts. Marketers should check their data for instances of APK distribution
and act accordingly.
Manufacturer or Carrier-based device verification: A new form of protection, in which Apple/Google/
mobile carriers are queried as to whether a device ID is legitimate and tied to a customer account, is
also gaining traction, particularly in developing markets like India and China.

This topic refers to theft
of goods and services. As
you consider purchase
fraud, it can be very helpful
to draw a distinction
between real goods
versus virtual goods.
These two different kinds
of purchased items create
different types of fraud
opportunities.
Mobile Purchase FRAUD
(Apsalar Q1)
2016
34%
Percentage of IAPs
that are fraudulent
Virtual goods or “IAPs”: Virtual good or in-app-purchase (IAP) fraud takes place
when imaginary items like gold for a game are stolen from app publishers.
Virtual goods are the revenue engine of the gaming industry. Many game
companies earn the lion’s share of their revenue from these items. These in-app
purchases (IAPs) are very profitable for game publishers because the goods are
virtual versus tangible. But they also leave such brands open to a high potential
for purchase fraud.
TYPE THREE

Fraudsters perpetrate IAP fraud by
mimicking confirmation messages from
the app stores, even though no real
transactions have taken place.
For many years, game developers turned
a blind eye to fraud, believing that it
represented “revenue” that they wouldn’t
have gotten anyway. The thinking here
was that bots and individuals acting
fraudulently were unlikely to actually
buy goods if they were prevented from
stealing them.
But more recently, game publishers have
recognized that fraudulent purchases
really do represent significant lost
revenue. Many would-be purchasers
of legitimate IAPs may erroneously
buy fraudulent goods through altered
versions of apps, or may leverage online
advice for “cracking” games. Further,
they might find an offer online for
discounted versions of virtual items and
either not understand or not care that
they are buying “hot” stuff.
Stolen virtual goods also damage user
experience. Fraud can create an unfair
advantage for cheaters, especially in
multiplayer games.
Game companies must block most or all
IAP fraud in order to maximize revenue
and profit. In the next column, you’ll find
a few of the most effective approaches
for detecting and minimizing IAP fraud.
Server-side verification: Both Apple and Google of fer a receipts system
in which any purchase of an item is verified by a notice of a transfer
of funds. Many tech companies (like Apsalar) incorporate server-side
verification into their offerings.
Code obfuscation and key encryption: While such strategies don’t
outright prevent fraud, they do make it more difficult for a fraudster to
copy or hack code.
APK site monitoring: Some bad actor Android APK sites make
unauthorized changes to app code in order to steal IAP revenue. Carefully
monitor your APK-derived installs by source to watch for fraud.
Monitoring and vigilance: Brands need to proactively monitor their IAP
data to spot signs of fraud. A variety of third party services are available,
but brands can also scan their own data for patterns like:
Purchases made from the same device advertising ID every
few seconds
Multiple purchases of the same IAP from the same device
Large value of purchases from a single device (e.g., >$75
worth of purchases from a device)
That provides an introduction to IAP fraud. Now let’s
change our focus to other types of retail theft.
01
02
03
04

Purchases enabled by identity theft/unauthorized use of a pirated credit cards or card numbers
Chargeback schemes where fraudsters order goods and then contact credit card companies to stop payment
Creation of false credit accounts by employees or hackers
This topic relates to theft of real world goods, not virtual ones.
Some of the most common sources of real goods transaction fraud include:
Real Goods and
Services:
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02
03
04
Some of the key strategies retailers use to reduce or prevent mcommerce transaction fraud include:
Using reputable credit card processors: Any credit card processor must be Payment Card Industry Data Security
Standard (PCI) compliant. This, coupled with transaction encryption, are minimum standards that merchants must adopt.
Requiring users to create accounts: A growing number of merchants are requiring users to create accounts, versus offering
the option of “guest checkout.” Account profiles enable brands to collect more user data and then develop robust shopper
profiles. They can use these profiles to verify purchasers before a fraudulent transaction takes place.
Fraud detection monitoring: By examining customer and transactional behavior, or by contracting with one of the many third
party services available to do the same, brands can identify and interpret signals of fraud. There are generally four different
perspectives considered: user behavior, physical location, security/authentication, and account activity.
Compartmentalization of employee responsibilities: Here the merchant divides the steps for creating accounts and
authorizing credit across multiple individuals, so that no one person can create false accounts that cost the company big money.
To protect your business, your best bet in regard to real goods and services purchases is to find experts in this incredibly
complex and specialized discipline that can help you formulate your protection strategies.

With mobile ad fraud, fraudsters deliver fake or invalid
impressions and clicks. They do this using one or two main
approaches:
Fraudulent apps and malware simulate ad impressions and
clicks that never actually occur, using legitimate devices
Banks of computers simulate ad views on “devices” that
don’t actually exist
Ad fraud in the app world is most damaging to publishers,
because brands typically pay for performance (cost per
install) while they sometimes pay publishers based on
impressions and clicks. Outside of apps, impression and click
fraud are most damaging to brands because they typically
pay by the impression or click.
Mobile App Advertising
FRAUD
TYPE FOUR

01
02
03
04
Programmatic media buying creates rich opportunities for ad fraud because of the daisy chain of
inventory sources. When publishers and networks can contract with thousands of partners to syndicate
content and drive traffic, it’s relatively easy to insinuate fraudulent ad views into campaigns.
Key strategies to prevent or reduce ad fraud for your business include:
Choose low IVT inventory services. Trusted third parties like MRC, IAS and comScore already
measure the percentage of invalid traffic delivered by many publishers. By limiting sellers that strive to
deliver genuine value, brands can reduce their risk before fraud can occur.
Leverage Verification Services: New technologies enable you to identify fraudulent or suspicious views
and actions within your campaigns.
Measure. And set goals tied to your true KPIs. It’s easy to game brands that are asleep at the wheel.
By employing robust measurement solutions, brands can detect and prevent bad inventory sources.
Further, by measuring and optimizing campaigns to real business goals like registrations, purchases,
and measurable brand effects, you can ensure that your ads are being delivered to relevant humans.
At minimum, make sure that the KPIs you use to measure results aren’t all “game-able”. Focus on
measures that reflect a meaningful impact on your business.
Benchmark norms for media partners and watch for major anomalies at the sub-publisher level.
Analyze your data to spot potential sources of fraud. Look for unknown publishers delivering huge traffic
or click counts. Avoid impression and click goals that are easily gamed. Use third party verification tools
to ensure campaign delivery and metrics. For media, verify key measures like impressions, complete
views, ad viewability and levels of nonhuman traffic.

Across all of these types of mobile fraud, your
efforts to limit their impact must start with a
robust foundation of data on your customers
and their actions. Without insight into what is
going on “under the hood”, you will have no
way of measuring the risks and costs of fraud.
While experts play an important role in
identifying and preventing mobile fraud,
marketing generalists can also take actions
that can significantly reduce the risks to their
businesses. It’s usually not too difficult to spot
signs of fraud. That’s because companies are
trying to steal a lot of money quickly. That greed
makes the signals easier to spot.
By laying a strong data foundation and then
deploying the tools and strategies necessary
to act on that data, brands can go a long way
toward reducing the risks and costs of mobile
fraud for your business.
Parting Thoughts

About the Author
Justin Fibich is a Region Head for Apsalar. A
seven-year martech and digital measurement
industry veteran, he is a mobile and mobile app
industry expert and a thought leader in the mobile
and PC measurement and attribution industry. At
Apsalar, he has been integral to establishing our
international client footprint in Asia, Latin
America and the Middle East, and has been a
key driver of our growth with leading app
publishers and F100 companies in the US. Prior
to joining Apsalar, he was a key member of the
sales organization at Conversant, Inc. (now a
division of Alliance Data,)
where he led the company’s popular Master
TMS® tag management offering and was key to
driving sales for Mediaplex Ad Server. Justin
has made significant contributions to the
adtech and martech industries, including
creating the IAB Arena, an innovative map of
the digital ecosystem recognized by the IAB as
an important tool to foster learning and
understanding of the digital display advertising
industry. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in
International Relations and Economics from
University of California-Davis, where he was also
a Defensive Tackle for the Aggies’ Division I
football team.

Apsalar is the leading mobile app marketing measurement and optimization company that helps app
marketers drive maximum return from all their marketing investments. With Apsalar attribution and
audiences, app marketers can optimize their media allocation and empower their partners and platforms to
deliver customized communications, for better results at every step in the customer journey.
With Apsalar, mobile-first companies get the data, information and insights they need to drive maximum
ROI. Apsalar offers powerful and proven solutions that help companies capitalize on many of their biggest
app growth opportunities.
App Media
Attribution and
Optimization
App Audiences
for
Remarketing
App CRM and
Prospecting
Audiences
ABOUT APSALAR
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE APSALAR MOBILE ROI PLATFORM,
contact us at
info@apsalar.com or visit our website at
https://Apsalar.com

The ABCs of Mobile App Fraud

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