Pixalate’s April 2024 Mobile App Spoofing Report For Apple App Store and Google Play Store: Solitaire Verse, 2048, Calculator Among Most at Risk

Pixalate’s data science team analyzed over 11.9M + mobile apps (including delisted apps) across the Google Play Store and Apple App Store and 31.6B + global open programmatic advertising impressions in April 2024 to compile this research

LONDON, May 17, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Pixalate, the market-leading fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform for Connected TV (CTV) and Mobile Advertising, today released the April 2024 Mobile App Spoofing Reports: Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

The reports reveal which mobile apps are most at risk of app spoofing. Malicious actors can use invalid traffic (IVT) techniques, such as app spoofing, to disguise the mobile app traffic source. The report ranks the apps most at risk of spoofing by geographic region, including North America, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Latin America (LATAM), as measured by Pixalate.
Pixalate’s data science team analyzed over 31.6 billion global open programmatic advertising impressions from over 11.9 million mobile apps (including delisted apps) across the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in April 2024 to compile this research.

Top Apple App Store mobile apps at risk of spoofing in April 2024 

• APAC: クラシルリワード-移動・チラシ・レシートでポイントがたまる
• EMEA: Likee – Short Video Community
• LATAM: Block Blast!
• North America: Kika Keyboard: Custom Themes

Top Google Play Store mobile apps at risk of spoofing in April 2024

• APAC: OK캐쉬백 [즐거움이 포인트다]
• EMEA: Number Up Merge – 2048 Puzzle
• LATAM: Calculator
• North America: Solitaire Verse

Download each report to see more mobile apps at risk of spoofing in April 2024, as measured by Pixalate:

• Google Play Store
• Apple App Store

Pixalate’s CTV App Spoofing Reports:

• Amazon Fire TV
• Samsung Smart TV
• Apple TV
• Roku 

Methodology
For background information, methodology and definitions related to Mobile App Spoofing, please visit our inaugural Mobile App Spoofing Report and view the FAQs there.

To compile this research, Pixalate’s data science team took the following steps:

1. Identify “Highly Impacted” mobile apps: On Google Play Store and Apple App Store within each of the global regions, Pixalate first identified apps with the highest rate of spoofed traffic (e.g. the percentage of all traffic purporting to come from an app that does not actually come from an app). In the context of this research, “Highly Impacted” apps are apps that have an app spoofing rate greater than 90% of other apps on a given platform within a given region (or 5%, whichever is lower) and pass an impression volume threshold.

1. The “Highly Impacted” apps are then ranked by volume of spoofed impressions.

About Pixalate
Pixalate is a global platform for privacy compliance, ad fraud prevention, and data intelligence in the digital ad supply chain. Founded in 2012, Pixalate’s platform is trusted by regulators, data researchers, advertisers, publishers, ad tech platforms, and financial analysts across the Connected TV (CTV), mobile app, and website ecosystems. Pixalate is MRC-accredited for the detection and filtration of Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT). www.pixalate.com 

Disclaimer
The content of this post, and the App Spoofing Report (the “Report”), reflect Pixalate’s opinions with respect to the factors that Pixalate believes can be useful to the digital media industry. Pixalate’s opinions are just that, opinions, which means that they are neither facts nor guarantees; and neither this press release nor the Report are intended to impugn the standing or reputation of any entity, person or app, but instead, to report findings and apparent trends in the time period studied. Per the MRC, “’Fraud’ is not intended to represent fraud as defined in various laws, statutes and ordinances or as conventionally used in U.S. Court or other legal proceedings, but rather a custom definition strictly for advertising measurement purposes. Also per the MRC, “‘Invalid Traffic’ is defined generally as traffic that does not meet certain ad serving quality or completeness criteria, or otherwise does not represent legitimate ad traffic that should be included in measurement counts. Among the reasons why ad traffic may be deemed invalid is it is a result of non-human traffic (spiders, bots, etc.), or activity designed to produce fraudulent traffic.”

Attachments

• Top Apple App Store mobile apps at risk of spoofing in April 2024
• Top Google Play Store mobile apps at risk of spoofing in April 2024

CONTACT: Nina Talcott
Pixalate Inc.
ntalcott@pixalate.com