Page 12 - AeM_June_2019

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

APAC’s mobile-first economy key target

for fraudsters, AppsFlyer revealed

AppsFlyer just released its APAC Ad Fraud Report 2019, threat of bots, non-human traffic and the always-
providing marketers a comprehensive report on the evolving techniques of bad actors in order to maintain
evolving mobile advertising industry in the region. their competitive advantage.”
Covering activity between November 2018 to April 2019,
the report examines 2.5 billion installs across over 8,000 Across the region, finance and shopping apps are the
apps in entertainment, finance, gaming, shopping, travel most affected, with finance apps having the highest
and utilities. targeted ad fraud victims in the region at 48.1%,
followed by shopping apps and travel apps
Appsflyer identified Southeast Asia as a key target for respectively, at 32.2% and 29.7%, in line with the
fraudsters, with over US$260 million at risk - the highest region’s growing consumer prosperity.
in APAC - with India’s financial exposure at US$186
million following behind. This follows Southeast Asia’s Attacks have primarily been carried out through bots
high mobile penetration rates, increasing connectivity and install hijacking, with click flooding and device
quality, and rapid integration of e-payment methods, farms still being a method that is in use but at a much
making it a highly lucrative target for fraudsters due to lower rate. With the sheer size of SEA’s mobile users,
the sheer size of users and high payouts that these device farms are deemed as being not as effective as
markets produce. The issue is further compounded by compared to software hacks.
lower resources for app developers, the prevalence of Bots are the main players in affecting finance apps
fraudulent traffic in local networks and high marketer across all regions (52%), while install hijacking and
demand for volume.
click flooding are the preferred use of attack for other
Beverly Chen, APAC Marketing Director at AppsFlyer, verticals. Also, the scale of the issue seems to be
said, “Southeast Asia is an attractive target for under-reported, as marketers in the region move
fraudsters, with marketers in the region tapping on the towards a cost per action (CPA) business model to
mobile-first and growing digital nature of the population measure app effectiveness instead of a cost per install
to drive marketing priorities. Fraud distorts and pollutes (CPI) model, with the infiltration and the sophisticated
the data businesses rely on to make decisions, resulting nature of ad fraud today, fraudsters have managed to
in a misinformed use of resources, ineffective spending infiltrate into the app itself making it harder to track.
and financial losses. To combat this, marketers need to
have multi-layered protection solutions in place as well Feel free to read the full version of the latest AppsFlyer
as understand and remain vigilant against the rising APAC Ad Fraud Report. ◊
By MediaBUZZ

12 June 2019 - Cyber-security & Data Protection