How app protection tools can safeguard businesses from cyber threats

Last updated on: March 20, 2023

The cost of cybercrime around the world is predicted to hit $8 trillion in 2023 and grow to an astonishing $10.5 trillion by 2025. For ecommerce business leaders who depend on the continued success of their mobile apps, the growing sophistication of cybercriminals presents a variety of issues. 

As a result, many are asking pressing questions about their app security and the safeguards they currently have in place. Ultimately, it should be a priority for all business leaders to acquire the most modern and tailored app protection tools. 

In this blog, we’ll be discussing a number of topics, including: 

• Why mobile application protection is important
• How Red Points can protect your mobile apps
• How Red Points’ mobile app protection tool works

Why is mobile application protection important?

There are currently just over 6.3 billion smartphone users across the world. As a result, the mobile app industry is booming. The market is so vast, diverse, and fast-paced that it can be difficult to comprehend, especially for businesses trying to stand out. 

The great amounts of money and attention directed toward the mobile app industry also means that it has become increasingly attractive to scammers, counterfeiters, and online pirates. Strong mobile application protection is the only answer yet many businesses still have inadequate protection services in place – 25% of mobile applications on the market today contain at least one high-risk security flaw. 

What threats is your business’s app facing?

If you want to safeguard your brand and the future of your business you have to be proactive. The best strategies to adopt are those centered on preemptive anti-piracy for mobile apps. These early proactive steps will save you revenue, time and reputation. A robust app protection tool will allow you to prevent pirates from taking advantage of your success and will stop them from replicating, modifying or distributing your intellectual property.  

Here are a few of the key threats that your business may be facing without proper mobile app protection:

• An unauthorized app was created to impersonate your brand. These apps are often hosted on legitimate app stores and popular third-party sites. These apps are set up by bad actors to leverage your business’s reputation in order to capture revenue for themselves.
• Fraudulent apps that leverage your trademark or copyrighted content to trick shoppers. They target consumers who may be easily confused by content, names, and logos strikingly similar to the real thing. These could include repackaging attacks, famous for infecting unsuspecting consumers with malware or other types of malicious software.
• Fake apps, or malware apps, are even more targeted in their deception and often have the express purpose of stealing user credentials for malicious schemes. 

What are the impacts that fake apps can have on a business?

Fake apps can have a significant negative impact on a business. These fraudulent applications can be used to scam customers, steal personal information, and damage a company’s reputation. Business owners should proactively monitor for fake apps that mimic their brand, as these can cause confusion among customers and erode trust in the company.

While this may sound alarmist, fake apps are more common than most business owners would likely suspect. According to a 2021 SensorTower report, over 7,500 fake apps were identified on the Google App store and thousands more were detected among various other app marketplaces online.

If one of these fake apps is targeting your business or your customers could immediately start to see some of the following impacts:

• Revenue loss – Pirates will relentlessly target the weak points of your mobile app, steal away customers and drain your revenue. Through malware and phishing attacks, scammers will mislead, redirect and defraud those customers which are most valuable to you. This will result in a tangible loss of business which in turn will lead to lower levels of revenue if you don’t reinforce your protection soon. 
• Reputation damage – A continuous campaign of scams and piracy events directed at your app will result in the loss of your brand’s reputation. You cannot claim to lead your industry or truly serve your customers if you are regularly at the mercy of bad actors. It demonstrates a lack of investment in security and a lack of seriousness about your brand’s growth – both of which will cause you serious reputation damage. 
• Poor user experience (UX) – cyber threats may come in the form of malicious pop-ups or deceptive links that redirect users away from your content. This will result in a poor user experience that will cause users to abandon your app.
• Wasted time and resources – Pursuing pirates and scammers without effective protection tools will be a waste of your business’s time and resources. One of the worst things about cyber threats is that they can be a nuisance and drain your business without being especially threatening. A modern app protection tool will allow you to prioritize threats and spend your resources efficiently. 

How can Red Points protect your mobile apps?

The first step to ensure you can protect your business’s mobile app is to engage in a solid and flexible mobile app protection solution. This is where Red Points can help. 

Our mobile app protection platform will help you find, remove and measure the impact of unauthorized, fake, or fraudulent apps stealing from your business. With sophisticated automation, tailored to your business needs, our solution will ensure that you can protect your customers, your revenue, and your reputation. 

The most common mobile app infringements are unauthorized, fake, or fraudulent apps. 

• An unauthorized app is an app created to impersonate your brand. These apps are often hosted on legitimate app stores and popular third-party sites. 
• Fraudulent apps leverage your trademark or copyrighted content to trick shoppers. They target consumers confused by content, names, and logos strikingly similar to the real thing. 
• Fake apps, or malware apps, are even more targeted in their deception and often have the express purpose of stealing user credentials for malicious schemes. 

To combat these various types of infringements Red Points conducts widespread and constant app store monitoring. The purpose of this application monitoring software is to hasten the process of finding and removing mobile apps that are damaging your business. 

Our tool serves as a vital pillar of data security and intellectual property protection for many businesses operating mobile apps. We cover over thirty mainstream and alternative app stores to ensure that you are thoroughly protected. Once we find an app that is harming your business we have an average enforcement rate of 77% and an average takedown time of 1.5 days. This means we can quickly remove those unauthorized, fake, or fraudulent apps and help you recover lost revenue and reputation. 

How does Red Points’ mobile app protection tool work?

Our mobile app protection tool works in stages to ensure you can combat app piracy and receive the most comprehensive protection.

Monitor & detect

Our bots search through over thirty app stores every day to identify potential infringements. These bots are powered by modern machine learning which serves to make the search more accurate and potent every time. Through this process of constant monitoring, we can then detect those apps that may be threatening your revenue, your UX, and your reputation. 

Validate & prioritize

Once we detect potential infringements we submit them to an automated process of validation and prioritization which can be manually tailored to the specific needs of any business. Here you can validate whether or not an app is genuine or fraudulent. Then you can also categorize apps from high to low priority to ensure that you are dealing with the most significantly damaging apps first, leaving the minnows for later.

Enforcement & follow-up

After identifying the apps that need to be targeted, we instantly start the enforcement process. Our artificial intelligence (AI) software identifies the element, or elements, of the app that is infringing on your intellectual property. Then the system requests takedowns automatically, ensuring that you are protected from impersonators, scammers, and mobile application piracy. 

Following enforcement, Red Points continues to boost your application security by allowing you to measure the impact of your protection actions. You can see performance dashboards and reports to understand the economic impact of proper app protection. 

What’s Next

Mobile app protection is integral to the growth and success of your own app and business. In this increasingly digital world, the customers’ journey to, and through, your mobile app will be key to securing their continued loyalty. If their journey is beset on all sides by fraudulent and malicious apps impersonating your brand and leeching off your IP, then your revenue and reputation will suffer. 

The solution is to use a robust and sophisticated mobile app protection tool. Red Points’ mobile app protection software will ensure you can monitor, prioritize, remove, and measure the impact of those apps intent on damaging your business. To learn more about how to protect your business with Red Points’ mobile app protection tool, talk to one of our experts.