Request pricing
Request pricing

Fraud and brand protection for mobile apps and SDKs

Connect with an expert

Protect your business

APP MODS & REVENUE LOSS

Every unauthorized copy of your app is a piece of your business someone else is running

A modded app doesn't just cost you a purchase. It severs the line between you and the person using your product or service. You lose the ability to communicate with them, protect them, or even know they're using your product.

  • Block unauthorized in-app purchase bypass and ad removal.
  • Detect modified app builds circulating outside official app stores.
  • Maintain control over your monetization and audience.
See app mod protection
01_FRAUD-BRAND-PROTECTION-L_GRID-APP-MODS-01
MODS-ICON-300
Counter app mods

Detect tampered builds that bypass paywalls, remove ads, or unlock premium features, and cut off the revenue leak before it spreads.

BOT-ICON-300
Shut down clones

Identify repackaged and cloned apps that impersonate your brand, steal user data, and put your reputation on the line.

IP_ICON-300
Guard your IP

Stop competitors from lifting your algorithms, models, and assets from your app's code and reusing them as their own.

02_FRAUD-BRAND-PROTECTION-R_GRID-REGULATION-RESILIENCE-02
TAMPERING & COMPLIANCE

Regulators expect resilience against reverse engineering

Compliance frameworks like PCI MPoC and PSD2/PSD3 don't ask whether your app might be tampered with. They ask what you're doing about it. The gap between those two questions is where liability lives.

  • Detect hooking, debugging, and instrumentation at runtime.
  • Support compliance with PCI, PSD2, PSD3, and other mobile app regulations.
  • Respond to threats in real time without shipping a new build.
Impact on FinTech mobile app security

Your app's reputation and revenue depend on what happens after you ship. Ensure only the genuine app gets through.

Talk to an expert

How attacks actually happen

Modified apps quietly drain the profits your team worked to build.

A modded app looks like a win for the user: no ads and every feature is unlocked. For you, it's a direct revenue hit and a broken link to your audience. Research on mobile piracy shows that for every illegal download, roughly two legitimate sales disappear with it. Specialized stores and tools exist purely to strip out your monetization, and once your audience moves to a modded build, you lose the ability to communicate with them. Detecting and blocking these builds isn't about punishing curious users. It's about protecting the revenue engine your app was created to power. Guardsquare’s code hardening obscures your monetization logic, while RASP checks instantly shut down modified environments.

A convincing fake app can do more damage than a broken one.

Cloning your app is faster and more convincing than building one from scratch. Attackers repackage the original code, keep it looking and functioning almost exactly like the legitimate app, and let your reputation earn the trust they haven’t. Because it looks and behaves like your genuine app, users trust it. They log in, enter sensitive data, and hand over the exact data attackers are targeting. Crude clones get caught quickly. Sophisticated ones, built from repackaged code, can run undetected for months, quietly damaging trust in the meantime.

If your API doesn't check who's asking, it will respond to anyone.

An attacker doesn't always need to alter your app. If they can reverse engineer how it interacts with your server, they can build their own client, script, or fake app that speaks the same language. From that point on, every check you built into the original app is irrelevant, because the original app was never involved. This is how cheaters bypass game logic, how modders unlock paid features for free, and how fake apps quietly extract data at scale. Protecting the endpoint means confirming that every request comes from your genuine, untampered app before you answer it.

PRTOTECTION-CAROUSEL-02
04-ThreatCast-carousel-2-2000-2
Attestation-UI-6

Simplify Compliance Requirements

Guardsquare’s complete security platform helps organizations address regulatory risks and compliance reporting requirements across all stages of the mobile app lifecycle.

DexGuard product image

DexGuard

ANDROID PROTECTION

Uncompromising protection for Android mobile apps and SDKs

Secure native Android and cross-platform apps and SDKs with DexGuard, offering multilayered, polymorphic obfuscation and built-in runtime application self-protection (RASP).

Learn more about Dexguard
iXGuard iOS PROTECTION

Secure native iOS and cross-platform apps and SDKs with iXGuard, offering multilayered, polymorphic obfuscation and built-in runtime application self-protection (RASP).

Learn more about iXGuard
App Attestation ANDROID & iOS

Secure your APIs at runtime. Protect your app with dynamic server-side policies that confirm in real-time the app accessing your APIs is genuine and stop API abuse like bots and automated attacks

Learn more about App Attestation

What changes when you close the gap

Fraud and cloning don't announce themselves. Most teams find out only after a user reports it or the damage is already done.

Without protection

Modded builds, clones, and unauthorized API calls run undetected until a user complaint, a chargeback, or a bad review exposes it.

  • Revenue quietly leaks through bypassed paywalls.
  • You discover the loss or impact from your users, not your systems.
  • Clones use your brand to collect data you never see.

With Guardsquare

Every build is hardened against reverse engineering, every session is checked for tampering, and every unusual pattern reaches you before it reaches your users.

  • Modified and repackaged builds get flagged automatically.
  • Only genuine, untampered apps can talk to your API.
  • You see the threat forming, not just the fallout.

More Fraud Protection Resources

Customer Stories customer story

Central American Bank Ensures Robust Mobile App Security with Guardsquare

A leading private financial organization utilizes Guardsquare’s testing, protection, and monitoring tools to bolster international growth.

Read the case study
Customer Stories customer story

Southeast Asian FinTech Company Prevents Fraud and Attacks with Guardsquare

Leading digital wallet provider secures top downloaded mobile payment apps with DexGuard, iXGuard, and ThreatCast

Read the case study
Customer Stories customer story

Southeast Asian FinTech Company Prevents Fraud and Attacks with Guardsquare

Leading digital wallet provider secures top downloaded mobile payment apps with DexGuard, iXGuard, and ThreatCast

Read the case study
View All Resources

Fraud & Brand Protection TL;DR

It's the set of defenses that stop your app from being modified, cloned, or tampered with by attackers who want to bypass monetization, impersonate your brand, or steal user data.

Modded apps remove ads and unlock paid features without payment. Beyond the direct loss, you also lose your connection to that audience, since they're no longer using your official build.

A mod changes your app to remove restrictions the user doesn't like. A clone recreates or repackages your app to impersonate it, usually to steal data rather than unlock features.

Yes. If someone reverse engineers how your app talks to your server, they can build a separate client or script that calls your API directly, bypassing any checks built into the original app.

Yes. PCI MPoC requires payment apps to resist reverse engineering, code injection, and tampering. PSD2 and PSD3 require strong customer authentication and protection against fraud at the transaction level. Code hardening protects the app binary itself, runtime checks catch tampering, hooking, or debugging as it happens, and app attestation confirms the request at your API actually came from a genuine, unmodified app. Together, they map directly to what these standards expect you to demonstrate.

Yes, as a foundational layer. While deepfake detection requires specialized capabilities, app-level protection (RASP) ensures the camera feed, biometric SDK, and device environment haven't been tampered with or fed a manipulated virtual input in the first place