End-to-end mobile app security provider Approov has expanded into securing mobile gaming apps with the addition of Genopets to its roster, which also includes consumer, ecommerce and financial brands such as Sixt, BMW, Papara and Deindeal.
The Genopets mobile pet care game lets players care for their digital pet while caring for themselves. The game uses step data from a player’s mobile device to power their journey in the “move to earn” game as they explore, battle, and evolve their Genopets — earning crypto while they play. Players can then sell their Genopets NFTs.
Genopets attracted hackers and cheaters trying to use its APIs to manipulate data on the backend to gain unfair advantage of the game, spoiling the game for more honest players. It tapped Approov to protect its API resources from abuse, and to ensure that every request to its backend originated from its authentic app and an authentic mobile device.
“We saw an immediate 99.9% reduction of malicious access to our backend resources once Approov was implemented, with no lag or performance impact,” remarks Kevin Kim, COO of Genopets. “Approov’s ability to get unlimited and unthrottled protection is unlike native or any other mobile app security solutions. It was easy to set up and the free trial allowed us to try it out first in our environment.”
Kim notes the importance of its Approov-enabled security to protect users’ personal information at all times, as well as the game’s fairness.
Both are major concerns that are going unmet by many mobile gaming app developers. A March 2023 study found that 81 percent of the most popular mobile games are vulnerable to basic cyberattacks. Just one of the 357 games tested was able to identify malware.
Approov RASP, app attestation and device attestation ensure that only genuine and authentic apps can access the game’s backend service — bots and would-be thieves are blocked from tampering with or repackaging the app.
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