TY - GEN
T1 - Fraus: Launching cost-efficient and scalable mobile click fraud has never been so easy
AU - Wen, Elliott
AU - Cao, Jiannong
AU - Shen, Jiaxing
AU - Liu, Xuefeng
PY - 2018/8/10
Y1 - 2018/8/10
N2 - Mobile click fraud is a type of attack where an adversary deceptively generates click events on mobile applications in pursuit of revenue. Conventionally, the attack is carried out by automating a massive number of physical devices. However, purchasing the devices incur substantial costs. A cheaper alternative to the physical devices is emulators. However, existing emulators are inefficient and vastly blocked due to their immense resource demand and defective device signatures. In this paper, we propose Fraus1, a cost-efficient and scalable approach to conduct largescale click fraud using device emulators. Fraus maintains a low resource profile by circumventing graphics emulation and applying lazy-loading techniques on system components. Besides, Fraus provides a seemingly authentic device signature and disguises itself as a legitimate device by fully emulating the missing hardware components including WiFi interfaces and cellular modems. To facilitate the management of numerous emulator instances, Fraus also offers a distributed management system, which is scalable and fault-tolerant. We evaluate the performance of Fraus by mocking attacks against the top 300 applications from the Google Play store. The results demonstrate that Fraus has high system stability and application compatibility. It also significantly reduces CPU usage and memory footprint up to 90% and 60% respectively compared with the existing emulators.1In Roman mythology, Fraus was the goddess or personification of treachery and fraud.
AB - Mobile click fraud is a type of attack where an adversary deceptively generates click events on mobile applications in pursuit of revenue. Conventionally, the attack is carried out by automating a massive number of physical devices. However, purchasing the devices incur substantial costs. A cheaper alternative to the physical devices is emulators. However, existing emulators are inefficient and vastly blocked due to their immense resource demand and defective device signatures. In this paper, we propose Fraus1, a cost-efficient and scalable approach to conduct largescale click fraud using device emulators. Fraus maintains a low resource profile by circumventing graphics emulation and applying lazy-loading techniques on system components. Besides, Fraus provides a seemingly authentic device signature and disguises itself as a legitimate device by fully emulating the missing hardware components including WiFi interfaces and cellular modems. To facilitate the management of numerous emulator instances, Fraus also offers a distributed management system, which is scalable and fault-tolerant. We evaluate the performance of Fraus by mocking attacks against the top 300 applications from the Google Play store. The results demonstrate that Fraus has high system stability and application compatibility. It also significantly reduces CPU usage and memory footprint up to 90% and 60% respectively compared with the existing emulators.1In Roman mythology, Fraus was the goddess or personification of treachery and fraud.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052570480&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/CNS.2018.8433126
DO - 10.1109/CNS.2018.8433126
M3 - Conference article published in proceeding or book
AN - SCOPUS:85052570480
SN - 9781538645864
T3 - 2018 IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security, CNS 2018
SP - 1
EP - 9
BT - 2018 IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security, CNS 2018
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 6th IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security, CNS 2018
Y2 - 30 May 2018 through 1 June 2018
ER -