The IT Nerd

Appdome today announced it has enhanced its award-winning Geo-Fraud Detection service to include two new defenses: Geo-Location Fencing and Geo DeSync Attack Detection. Combined with other Geo-Compliance features available on the Appdome platform, mobile app developers and enterprises can eliminate location-based fraud, ensure geo-compliance and deliver location relevant user experiences in mobile apps free from location spoofing, fake location, VPNs, Fake GPS Apps and other threats.

Geo-fencing is essential in finance apps and other regulated industries that need to meet Know Your Customer (KYC) and other compliance mandates, such as the US Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) requirements. Geo-fencing enables mobile app developers to restrict or limit app access on a country or regional level, ensuring that operations are compliant with local laws and regulations.

A Geo Desync Attack is a cyber-attack that intentionally creates mismatches in location data on a mobile device. By manipulating GPS coordinates, altering the time zone settings, and falsifying accelerometer readings, attackers can deceive location-based services and security systems. This type of attack can lead to inaccurate tracking, unauthorized access, and potential breaches of security protocols, undermining the integrity of location-dependent applications and services.

Unlike legacy geo compliance offerings that rely on proprietary, costly, and vendor-built geo service networks, the Appdome Geo Compliance solution zeros in on protecting the mobile device’s built-in location services and ensures these services have not been abused or tampered with. Appdome’s approach eliminates the need for third-party networks, SDKs, complex server-based implementations and does not require third-party monthly usage fees, allowing the enforcement to work even if the device is not network-connected.

The full Appdome Mobile Geo-Compliance solution puts an end to geo-fraud by detecting fake location, fake GPS apps, fraudulent location, detect VPN, no SIM (fake device), teleportation, Geo DeSync and other attacks. Customers simply select the Geo-Compliance features needed in any Android & iOS apps and initiate the build command from CI/CD or using the Appdome Platform’s “Build My App” button. Appdome’s patented technology uses machine learning to code the defenses into each application, so mobile developers don’t have to.

The Appdome Geo-Compliance solution is available in multiple enforcement modes including advanced telemetry and customized responses or workflows when geo compliance threats are detected, and monitoring geo-fraud attacks via the Appdome ThreatScope™ Mobile XDR, either before or after the deployment of geo-location defenses via the Appdome platform.

See the full Appdome Mobile Geo-Compliance solution live at Black Hat USA August 3-8, 2024 in booth #1350.

For more information on Appdome Geo-Compliance capabilities and to book a personalized demo, visit https://www.appdome.com/mobile-fraud-detection/geo-compliance/.

Appdome today announced the results of its 4^th Annual Global Consumer Survey of Mobile App Security here at the OWASP Global AppSec conference. The survey reveals that mobile end users are keenly aware of the growing security, fraud, and privacy threats when they use mobile apps and demand that mobile brands and enterprises step forward to provide real defenses to these threats.

To create the 2024 survey, Appdome partnered with the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) and included survey questions that measures consumer alignment with the OWASP Mobile Application Security (MAS) standard, as well as anti-fraud and other cyber objectives. The voice of the global consumer was clear – not only do they demand the protections included in the OWASP MAS standard, but the survey data reveals a challenge to the entire mobile industry to improve the state of the art of mobile app protection, globally.

The 2024 survey data adds to the 120,000+ consumer voices gathered from 12 countries over the past four years, making the Appdome Global Consumer Survey the largest single collection of consumer data on mobile app security, privacy, anti-fraud, and other attack vectors. Mobile applications have taken center stage in consumers’ daily life. Mobile app protection – consisting of mobile app security, malware defense, fraud prevention, and privacy – is now critical to the way consumers choose and use mobile apps, and also critical in whether they choose to stay with and promote a brand.

Several upward trends are revealed in the 2024 data, including consumers’ use of mobile apps, their awareness of mobile attack vectors, the growing expectation of protection in apps and consumers’ willingness to be brand advocates if protected. Here are some of the cyber expectations in mobile apps that hit all-time highs in the 2024 Survey:

• Mobile vs. Web: 55.3% — the highest level ever— of global consumers say they use mobile applications more than web, dwarfing preference for online/web at 22.5%. Furthermore, with 63.4% — the highest level ever— say that they use more than 6 mobile apps weekly.
• Total Protection: 99.5% —the highest level ever— of global consumers demand total protection in mobile apps including mobile app data, account integrity, login, data storage, data in transit, and protection from malware and fraud.
• Social Engineering: 70.6% —the highest level ever— of global consumers have themselves, or know someone who has, been a victim of social engineering or other fraud attacks.
• Fraud Prevention: 83.5% —the highest level ever— of global consumers demand brands proactively prevent mobile fraud from happening rather than reimburse them post-fraud.
• Features vs. Security: 87.4% —the highest level ever— of global consumers say that mobile app protection is equally or more important than mobile app features in their decision to use a mobile app, with 90.6% saying they evaluate the security claims of the brand before downloading a mobile app.
• Fear Inaction: The number of global consumers who fear “developers don’t care” about protecting the mobile app has increased by 258%, topping the four-year survey at 1 in 4 of all respondents.

Consumers maintained strong perspectives on these top trends in the 2024 survey:

• Rewarding Secure Brands: 94.6% —the highest level ever— of respondents state they will become brand advocates for mobile brands that protect their apps and use. More than half (53.6%) said they would use the highest forms of advocacy, such as app store reviews or social media endorsements.
• Consequences for Insecure Apps: 96.7% —the highest level ever— of respondents state they would abandon a mobile brand for failing to protect their app and use, and 73.9% saying they would encourage others to abandon the mobile brand too.

To obtain Appdome’s 4th Annual “Global Consumer Expectations of Mobile App Security Survey,” please visit Appdome Survey.

To learn more about the OWASP Mobile App Security (MAS) standard and join the OWASP community, please visit OWASP MAS.

Appdome, the mobile app economy’s one-stop shop for mobile app defense, today released a new mobile SDK protection and mobile threat streaming service, called Appdome SDKProtect™. Appdome SDKProtect is designed to end third-party, mobile supply chain risk and democratize mobile threat intelligence and telemetry data among mobile SDK developers. The new service enables mobile SDK developers to quickly and easily create protected and threat-aware versions of their mobile SDKs, reducing fraud and ensuring compliance.

Mobile SDKs play a critical role in the mobile app economy, enabling Android & iOS developers to integrate essential functions into their applications, such as payment and banking services, digital identity verification, analytics, advertising, and more. The widespread use of mobile SDKs also makes them a prime target for malicious actors seeking to exploit SDKs to create supply chain risks inside mobile apps or compromise mobile app security to perform identity fraud, account takeovers, SDK spoofing, data breaches or other attacks.

The new Appdome SDKProtect service provides mobile SDK vendors and developers with multiple options for mobile SDK protection. Appdome SDKProtect strengthens the security posture of third-party software development kits (SDKs) used in mobile app development against static and dynamic attacks, reverse engineering, IP loss and exploits. The service also makes Appdome platform’s rich mobile attack and intelligence data intelligence framework available to SDK providers to enhance the value of their SDK-based mobile services.

Appdome SDKProtect™ offers several levels of mobile SDK protection:

• Threat-Shielding: Used to protect mobile SDK against reverse engineering and tampering by obfuscating and encrypting SDK data, strings, resources and preferences.
• Mobile Risk Evaluation: Comprehensive coverage of SDK attacks, such as facial recognition bypass, root and Jailbreak detection, emulator detection, hooking frameworks, debuggers, Android debug bridge and more.
• Threat Intelligence: Takes the power of Threat-Shielding and Mobile Risk Evaluation and combines it with two visibility and control options.
  • Threat-Streaming, which takes Threat Intelligence to the next level by providing real-time telemetry data that can be streamed to the SDK maker’s back-end to create specific outcomes when attacks happen.
  • Threat-Monitoring, which combines the protections with real-time attack monitoring and enterprise-grade intelligence via Appdome ThreatScope™ Mobile XDR.

The mobile Threat Intelligence packages leverage the power of Appdome Threat-Events™ in-app attack intelligence framework. The framework that empowers mobile developers with real-time event data and control for mobile SDKs.

Using the Appdome SDKProtect service is easy. Mobile SDK developers present the Appdome platform with a version of the mobile SDK (in Android .aar or .jar and iOS framework files), choose the level of protection to apply to the SDK and initiate the build command. Once selected, the Appdome platform builds the chosen protections into the mobile SDK. In just minutes, the protected mobile SDK is available for download and distribution by the mobile SDK developer to its customers.

Appdome SDKProtect is fully compatible with all mobile platforms, frameworks, and development languages. It seamlessly integrates with existing app development workflows and tools, requiring no changes to the SDK source code or development environment.

To learn more about Appdome SDKProtect, please visit https://www.appdome.com/sdkprotect/.

 Appdome today announced Appdome MobileEDR™, a new enterprise mobile app protection service that consolidates Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) and Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) capabilities into a single agentless product offering. MobileEDR leverages the 300+ defenses of the Appdome platform and provides real-time mobile threat and attack detection, deep mobile device inspection and anywhere enforcement to keep enterprise networks and resources safe from malware, supply chain and other attacks.

Legacy MTD and mobile EDR solutions have failed to adequately protect against the growing proliferation of mobile threats. To work, these early offerings required user-dependent software agents, such as separate mobile apps or profiles, to be installed on the user’s mobile device(s). These added agents, apps and profiles raised privacy concerns among employees, slowed adoption and could be disabled by the mobile end user, leaving gaps in device inspection and mobile threat detection.  Likewise, these early offerings often impose a manual implementation burden and complex SDKs on resource constrained mobile development teams, leading most teams to shelve or abandon MTD and mobile EDR deployment. Appdome is eliminating this friction and delivering the world’s first agentless, no code, no server solution for enterprise mobile apps to ensure maximum enterprise adoption and protection.

The Appdome MobileEDR is an in-app mobile EDR and MTD solution coded into enterprise mobile applications by Appdome’s patented no-code, unified mobile app defense platform. By delivering the needed device inspection, threat detection and telemetry capabilities in the mobile app itself, Appdome provides continuous and comprehensive monitoring of Android and iOS devices, including mobile smartphones, embedded apps, VR apps, and wearable apps. All mobile threat inspections are performed throughout the lifecycle of use for each mobile app, without any server, server call outs or other external attestation. This ensures full runtime protection, improves stability and responsiveness, and eliminates signal spoofing common with server attestation services. 

Key features of Appdome MobileEDR solution include:

• In-App Enterprise Delivery: Appdome MobileEDR is the only solution that can be deployed in both internally developed and 3^rd party mobile applications without any code, coding, SDKs or servers. All mobile EDR/MTD capability is added in the enterprise application and hardened against reverse engineering and attacks by design.
• In-Use Mobile Threat Inspection:  Once embedded in an enterprise mobile app, Appdome’s Threat-EKG feature functions as a persistent mobile EDR/MTD solution during the lifecycle of use for each mobile application. That means, it operates when the enterprise mobile application is in use (and does not operate when it’s not in use). This eliminates any privacy concerns and allows the mobile EDR/MTD to detects mobile threats relevant to the enterprise business in real time.
• Broadest Mobile Threat Detection: Appdome packs 300+ mobile app security, anti-malware, anti-spyware, anti-vishing, anti-fraud, social engineering, geo-compliance, and anti-bot defenses into MobileEDR to offer enterprises the most comprehensive mobile device inspection, EDR and MTD on the market. 
• Anywhere Enforcement: The Appdome MobileEDR’s Anywhere Enforcement™ model allows enterprises to use mobile threat detection and defense data across the entire enterprise infrastructure, including the mobile app, mobile app server, IAM service layer, UEM/MAM/MDM, or firewall/WAF. This ensures that enterprises can get the full benefit of deep device inspection on managed and unmanaged mobile devices.
• Adaptive Mobile Trust: Appdome MobileEDR is the only mobile threat detection and defense system that empowers the enterprise to set the level of trust to use in evaluating on-device mobile threats. Enterprises can use either Zero-Trust, to ensure the device is free of any specific threat before allowing connection, login or activity in the mobile app. Or, Enterprises can use Dynamic Trust which evaluates the device state dynamically throughout the lifecycle of mobile app use.
• Appdome ThreatSource™: Appdome MobileEDR comes ready to use with application userID or sessionID to give enterprises even deeper investigation and telemetry on threats and attacks impacting their users and network.
• Appdome ThreatScope™ Mobile XDR: Telemetry data is visualized in ThreatScope, which provides instant visibility and rapid, agile response to any threat or attack against Android & iOS apps.

Appdome will be demonstrating the new Appdome MobileEDR solution at the RSA Conference 2024 in San FranciscoMay 6-9, 2024 in booth #2339. For more information about Appdome MobileEDR, please visit our web site at https://www.appdome.com/enterprise-mobile-app-security/mobile-endpoint-detection-and-response/.  

Appdome, the mobile app economy’s one-stop shop for mobile app defense, today announced it has released a new plug-in for the CI/CD cloud-based service from Atlassian Bamboo. The new pre-built plug-in connects the Appdome unified mobile app defense platform to Atlassian Bamboo CI/CD and enables teams to continuously code, build, validate, test and sign Appdome-secured mobile applications from the Bamboo CI/CD with ease. This new plug-in is part of the Appdome Dev2Cyber Agility Partner Initiative to advance the delivery of secure mobile apps globally.

Manual methods of coding or integrating point products for obfuscation, RASP, anti-tampering and other defenses in Android and iOS apps are complex, resource-intensive and brittle. The Appdome Unified Mobile App Defense platform leverages machine learning and automation to code, build, validate, test and release cybersecurity, anti-fraud and other defenses in iOS and Android apps. With the new Appdome for Atlassian CI/CD Plug-In, Atlassian Bamboo customers can fully automate the end-to-end lifecycle for any of Appdome’s 300+ mobile app defenses including runtime application self-protection (RASP), code obfuscation, mobile data encryption, man-in-the-middle attack prevention, anti-malware, anti-fraud, anti-cheat, anti-bot, geo compliance, social engineering and other protections and keep pace with modern DevOps pipelines.

Today, global consumers demand more protection than ever in their mobile app experiences. Appdome’s recent global consumer survey revealed that 94% of global consumers would promote a brand if the mobile apps protected them against security, fraud and malware risks. 68% also indicated they would abandon brands that offered no protection.

For more information on how to use the Appdome Build2Secure Task for Atlassian Bamboo, please see this knowledge base article.

Appdome today unveiled its new Social Engineering Prevention service on the Appdome Platform. The new service enables mobile brands to continuously detect, block and intervene the moment social engineering attacks attempt to exploit user trust or manipulate user behavior. The new service includes several new real-time defenses against voice phishing (vishing), remote desktop control, FaceID bypass, fake applications, and SIM swapping, all of which protect user safety, brand reputation, business continuity, and revenue generation.

Social engineering attacks exploit brand trust by using impersonation and psychological manipulation to cause mobile users to divulge sensitive information, such as passwords, OTP keys, and more, perform actions in a mobile app on behalf of the attacker, or install new apps that give the attacker control over the user’s mobile device. Such mobile app attacks can have far-reaching consequences for consumers, including account takeover, financial loss, identity theft, confusion, and fear. Traditionally social engineering attacks were only discovered after an attack was successful, leaving mobile brands and users with months of financial, reputational, and emotional harm. Now, brands have the power of the first real-time solution to detect and intervene in social engineering attacks the moment they happen, disrupting the multi-billion-dollar social engineering fraud ecosystem.

Appdome’s Social Engineering Prevention empowers mobile brands to break the cycle of live attacks by detecting and defending in real time the top methods social engineering attackers use to injure brands and users:

• Voice Phishing (Vishing) Fraud: Uses behavioral analysis to detect when mobile end users’ activity in a mobile app coincides with a potentially malicious phone call, via attacks such as FakeCalls.
• Remote Desktop Control: Detects third-party applications, such as TeamViewer, used in social engineering attacks to remotely control mobile devices and applications.
• Biometric (FaceID) Bypass: Detects when an attacker attempts to spoof, fake or bypass biometric (facial) recognition in Android and iOS mobile apps, such as in GoldPickaxe. 
• SIM Swapping: Detects when an attacker uses the mobile application with a replacement SIM card that the attacker controls.
• Admin-SU Profiles: Detects if the device has an MDM, admin-SU, or similar profile installed on the device, which could spy or control the user’s application.
• Trojan Apps: Prevent trojan apps, embedded with Malware such as FjordPhantom, used to spy on end users and gather data for social engineering attacks.

The new Social Engineering Prevention features can be deployed stand-alone or combined with any or all of Appdome’s 300+ other mobile app security, anti-fraud, anti-malware, geolocation compliance and other defenses. Together, Appdome makes it easy for mobile brands to unify mobile app defenses vs. the cost and complexity of cobbling together several disparate technologies to attempt to achieve a workable defense.

Like all of Appdome’s mobile app defenses, the new social engineering prevention features are available in several enforcement modes – in-app defense, in-app detection, and using Appdome’s Threat-Events™ in-app control framework. Threat-Events allows mobile brands to gather data on each attack, control the user experience and create beautiful on-brand mobile experiences when attacks happen. Mobile brands can use Threat-Events to leverage the power of their brand voice to break the cycle of a social engineering attack by restricting transactions, triggering SMS check-ins or educating users with in-app popups when threats are present. Mobile brands can track and monitor social engineering attacks via Appdome’s ThreatScope™ Mobile XDR, either before or after the deployment of social engineering prevention features.

For more information on Appdome’s Social Engineering Prevention service, visit https://www.appdome.com/mobile-fraud-detection/social-engineering-prevention/.

Appdome today unveiled its new Geo Compliance feature set, allowing mobile brands to trust the user’s location and detect location spoofing, fake GPS apps, VPN use, SIM swaps and other methods used to circumvent geo restrictions in mobile applications. Mobile brands already use Appdome to simplify and accelerate delivery of mobile app security, anti-fraud, anti-bot and other defenses in Android & iOS apps. Now, mobile brands can combine Appdome’s new, no-code, no-SDK, Geo Compliance features with any other mobile app defense features on its unified mobile app defense platform. 

Mobile application commerce continues to rise rapidly. The geo-location integrity of the mobile end user and transaction data is critical. In many cases, Know-Your-Customer (KYC) policies, regulations like business licensing, advertising restrictions, consumer safety and privacy all rely on valid geographic data and restrictions in mobile apps. On top of that, mobile brands need a greater array of signals to detect fraud. They also need to ensure malicious users are not faking their mobile location to bypass geo restrictions or obtain access to offer inventory and services outside of an approved geography. Putting the quality of the user experience center stage, these same brands need geo compliance to validate user identities in mobile applications, including in P2P and social-based mobile applications.

Legacy geo compliance, mobile app security, and anti-fraud products are point products, providing narrow detection and defense coverage. Using more than one of these point products in the same mobile app requires complex app-level code changes to overcome compatibility challenges and resolve in-app conflicts from overlapping feature sets. These challenges don’t exist when using Appdome, as all detection and defenses options including the new Geo Compliance features, come fully interoperable with all other 300+ Appdome defenses out-of-the-box. 

With Appdome’s Geo-Compliance Service, mobile brands can detect:

• Fake Location: Combat the growing threat of location spoofing, using a method to manipulate or falsify of the geographical location transmitted by a mobile device.
• Fake GPS Apps: Detected Fake GPS Apps, used by mobile end users as a location service provider, when your mobile app is in use. 
• VPN In Use: Advanced techniques to detect attempts to bypass geographical restrictions using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). 
• SIM Swaps: Robust SIM swap detection, alerting brands to SIM card or eSIM changes, when other location variables remain unchanged. 
• Random Locations: Identifies mismatches in location telemetry from on-device settings or components, including manual overrides to on-device location services.
• Teleportation: Improbable location changes within timeframes.
• Banned Locations: Detect when an app trying to be used in a country/region where the mobile brand does not allow use.
• Other Geo-Compliance features: several other geo-compliance features provide data and control to mobile brands with location-based services, offers and promotions.

The new Geo Compliance features can be combined with any of the 300+ mobile app defenses in mobile app security, anti-malware, anti-fraud, MOBILEBot™ Defense, anti-cheat, MiTM attack prevention, code obfuscation, and more in Android and iOS apps. All features are fully automated and built on-demand in the language of the mobile app by the Appdome platform, inside the mobile DevOps and CI/CD pipeline.

For more information on Appdome’s Geo-Compliance feature set, visit https://www.appdome.com/geo-compliance.

Appdome announced extensions to its groundbreaking MOBILEBot Defense product, making it fully portable to any web application firewall (WAF). These extensions save mobile brands millions of dollars, extend the useful life of existing WAF infrastructures and drive down the cost to extend bot defense to the mobile channel.  

Appdome’s MOBILEBot Defense product is the industry’s only comprehensive anti-bot defense solution built-from-the-ground-up for mobile apps. It offers mobile brands multi-layered bot detection, intelligence and defense all in one solution, easily protecting the mobile channel from 100+ attack vectors including fake apps, weaponized apps, malware-controlled apps, bot attacks, credential stuffing, DDoS and account takeovers (ATOs). It requires no SDK, no coding, and no added servers to deploy, and is fully compatible with all coding languages and frameworks used in mobile app development. With the new line up of extensions announced today, Appdome’s MOBILEBot Defense product now works seamlessly with any WAF used in a mobile brand’s network. 

Unlike other anti-bot products, Appdome MOBILEBot Defense can be used with any cloud, hosted or on-premises WAF including Akamai WAF, Cloudflare WAF, Fastly WAF, F5 WAF, Radware WAF, AWS WAF and more. MOBILEBot Defense does not require an SDK, mobile app code changes or any servers and offers full support for all mobile languages and frameworks, including Obj-C, C+, Java, JS, C#, C++, Swift, Kotlin, Flutter, React Native, Unity, Xamarin, Maui, Cordova and more.  

As part of its announcement, Appdome also released real-time visibility of bot attacks in its ThreatScope Mobile XDR. The new bot detection and analytics service allows mobile brands to measure, track, investigate, report, and respond to threats and attacks across the WAF infrastructure, providing SOC-class visibility into mobile bot attacks and threats with full drill-down on attacks against specific apps, devices, OSs, releases, and more, all without a separate analytics package, SDK or device agent. 

Visit Appdome’s web site to learn more about MOBILEBot Defense, and about Appdome’s support for WAF providers including Akamai, AWS Virtual Server, Azure Virtual Server, Cloudflare, Fastly, Google Cloud Platform, Imperva, Radware and F5. 

The global surge in mobile app usage has transformed brand engagement, but it brings a heightened risk of cybersecurity threats. Appdome‘s survey of 25,000 consumers across 12 countries reveals that 40% have experienced or known someone close to them falling victim to cyber-attacks, emphasizing the urgent need for robust security measures. 

Consumer concern is evident, with 73% stating they would swiftly abandon an app at the slightest hint of vulnerability. App developers must recognize their pivotal role in shielding users from cyber threats, transitioning from basic protection to a robust mobile app defense.  

Crucially, users now demand prevention, not compensation after a privacy breach, necessitating closer collaboration between app developers and security vendors from the start of the development process. 

For a detailed exploration of the state of mobile app security, please have a look at the full report.