London, UK: RiskIQ has announced that Publishers Clearing House is using RiskIQ to monitor and protect its enterprise digital footprint from fraudulent mobile apps that threaten its Brand and customers.
Publishers Clearing House is a leading omni-channel media company offering a broad range of products, digital entertainment, and services to consumers that power its famous free-to-play, chance-to-win prize promotions. It has been a trusted brand for over 60 years, awarding more than $280 Million in prizes to lucky winners. Consumers have traditionally engaged with the company via direct mail, its website and email. More recently, PCH has invested significantly in gaming sites and free-to-play mobile apps. Protecting the PCH brand across the web and establishing trust in the mobile environment is a top business priority. The company found that phishing attacks and fraud is just as prevalent in the mobile app ecosystem as it is on the web and in direct mail.
“At first, we weren’t aware of the scope of the underground market for rogue mobile apps. We had tools in place that we thought were sufficient, but soon realized we needed more robust detection and protection capabilities,” said Sal Tripi, AVP, Digital Operations & Compliance at Publishers Clearing House. “Within the first month of implementing RiskIQ’s mobile solution, we found and eradicated more than 65 rogue mobile apps that were impersonating PCH. RiskIQ was easy to implement, intuitive to use, didn’t require incremental resources to manage, and had an immediate impact on our business.”
Due to the simplicity of creating and launching copycat mobile apps, threat actors can easily and quickly leverage a trusted brand for malware delivery. RiskIQ enables PCH to proactively discover, inventory and manage its extensive mobile footprint to identify and take down unauthorized, fraudulent and rogue apps.
“Google Play and the Apple App Store each offer nearly 2 million apps. Each time a new app is published to one of them, it can proliferate to dozens of other app stores within days. This dynamically changing ecosystem makes it very challenging for organizations to inventory legitimate apps, let alone rogue or fraudulent apps,” said Elias Manousos, CEO of RiskIQ. “The RiskIQ platform continuously crawls the Internet and hundreds of app stores worldwide to enable companies to quickly identify and take down phony, fraudulent, and unsanctioned apps. We enable the world’s largest and most trusted brands, like PCH, to ensure the mobile apps their customers download are in fact theirs.”