• by Philip Rosenstein , September 22, 2016

AppsFlyer, the mobile advertising attribution and marketing analytics platform, released a report Thursday assessing the 2016 mobile app fraud landscape. An estimated $100 million will be lost through fraudulent app download and ad engagement activity on mobile this year.

Apps Flyer also launched fraud prevention product DeviceRank, which aims to protect mobile app providers from fraudulent installs and campaigns from fake impressions. Using machine learning, DeviceRanks updates the rating for each device measured after every new app interaction.

DeviceRank applies a similar approach to rating agencies, using C, B, A, AA and AAA ratings to determine the chance of a particular device engaging in fraudulent activity. Devices that have a C rating are automatically designated as fraudulent and immediately excluded from AppFlyer’s analytics and attributed installs.

According to AppsFlyer's report, the U.S. market is the most heavily targeted by app fraudsters.  When accounting for the mobile population, however, Germany, Australia and China have the highest incidence of app fraud. Canada, the U.K., U.S., Russia and France follow in proportion to the total mobile population in each country.

India, Brazil, Indonesia have high mobile and app usage, but are less targeted by fraud as the payouts are significantly lower than in other countries.

"On the economic side, there is a large portion of the global market that does not yet have any device-level protection. This leaves a sizable, addressable market for fraudsters who want to cash in while they still can," Jon Burg, head of product marketing at AppsFlyer, told Real-Time Daily via email.