At a Glance: Fraud Shield in Apptrove helps you protect your campaigns from fraudulent installs and events. This article walks you through how to configure custom rules, apply predefined anti-fraud filters, and monitor fraud insights, all using a clean and flexible interface.
Introduction
Fraud Shield is Apptrove’s built-in anti-fraud engine that empowers advertisers and marketers to detect, analyze, and prevent invalid or suspicious activity across all partner and agency traffic. From simple filters like app version mismatches to more sophisticated logic conditions, Fraud Shield provides the flexibility to define what fraud means for your business and take action accordingly.
Whether you're monitoring for SDK spoofing, duplicate IPs, or customizing logic to block traffic from specific devices or time zones, Fraud Shield allows you to respond proactively, and in real time.
Navigating to Fraud Shield in Apptrove
You can access the Fraud Shield section directly from your Apptrove dashboard:
In the left-hand sidebar, locate and click on Fraud Shield.
You will find two main subsections:
Rules – where you can create, view, and manage your fraud detection rules.
Insights & Reports – where you can analyze fraud trends, view rejection reasons, and optimize your strategy accordingly.
From here, you can begin configuring your rules or reviewing existing anti-fraud analytics.
Migration of Validation Rules into Fraud Shield
To streamline fraud detection and enhance configurability, existing Validation Rules are being migrated into the Fraud Shield Custom Rules framework. This unification simplifies rule management and offers more flexible configurations across partners and campaigns.
Organic Settings: If your validation setup includes checks for organic traffic, these will be migrated as a dedicated standalone rule within the Fraud Shield interface.
Partner Rules with Identical Logic: When multiple partners share the same validation logic, they will be grouped under a single unified rule. For instance, if Partner A and Partner B both use the same rule set, the system will create one rule that applies to both.
Partner-Specific Rules: If a partner has unique logic, a separate rule will be created just for them. So, if Partner C uses different settings from A and B, they will be handled independently within their own rule block.
Agency-Based Rules: The same rule consolidation logic applies to agency accounts. Shared configurations will be merged into one rule, while unique ones will be separated.
This migration ensures reduced duplication, centralized control, and improved scalability for managing fraud logic across multiple stakeholders.
Creating a New Rule
Once inside the Custom Rules section, click Add Rule to begin creating your own fraud detection logic. This panel is divided into multiple parts, making rule creation easy and modular.
Rule Name
Give your rule a clear, descriptive name. This helps you recognize its purpose later when managing multiple rules.
Apply On
Choose which traffic type this rule should apply to:
Partner – for affiliate or publisher traffic.
Agency – for media bought through agency networks.
UniLink – for handling deep link-level attribution.
Then specify whether to Include or Exclude certain entities, and select individual partners or apply it across All partners under the selected category.
⚠️ Important: A partner can only be part of one active custom fraud rule. If you need to update or expand logic for a particular partner, you must edit the existing rule.
Events to Apply
Decide which kinds of events the rule should inspect
Install only
In-app event only
Both install and in-app events
This flexibility ensures your fraud monitoring is applied exactly where it’s needed.
Action
Select how Apptrove should handle traffic that matches the rule’s condition
Mark as rejected on custom setting – use your own condition logic to reject traffic.
Mark as rejected on predefined setting – apply Apptrove’s built-in fraud detection types.
Mark as rejected (custom or predefined) – combine both custom and predefined checks.
Bypass – accept all traffic from selected sources; useful for whitelisting or monitoring without blocking.
Tip: Use the “Bypass” option when running diagnostics or testing traffic without applying any restrictions.
Custom Conditions in Fraud Shield
Custom conditions give you granular control over what constitutes fraud. These logic blocks evaluate incoming traffic against your chosen criteria and act accordingly. You can combine multiple conditions to form highly specific detection logic. You can add multiple conditions and chain them together by clickin the "+" button.
Variables You Can Use
The following fields are available as variables when building your rule logic. They represent metadata sent with each event and are evaluated in real-time
Order ID – A unique identifier for the user event, typically generated per transaction.
Customer ID / Customer Phone – User identifiers used for session or account mapping.
ITET (Install to Event Time) – Time difference in seconds between app installation and the triggered event. Useful for identifying abnormal behavior.
SDK Type / SDK Version – Specifies the platform and version used by the app (e.g., Android SDK v4.3.2).
SDK Params 1–10 – Custom parameters captured by your app SDK. These are developer-defined and useful for tracking internal values.
Campaign / Campaign ID – Indicates the marketing campaign associated with the event.
Ad / Ad ID / Ad Set / Ad Set ID – Helps identify specific creatives and placements.
Site ID – Refers to the traffic source or publisher sending the event.
GEO / City – Geographic location of the device based on IP.
OS Version / App Version – Operating system and app build details to detect outdated or spoofed environments.
Supported Operators
Operators are comparison tools used to define how values should be matched or checked. When setting conditions, you use these to create logical expressions:
Is Empty / Is Not Empty – Checks if a field contains any value.
Equals / Not Equals – Performs an exact match or mismatch.
Contains / Starts With / Ends With – Matches values partially or based on prefixes/suffixes.
Bigger Than / Less Than – Used for numeric or time-based comparisons.
In List / Not In List – Checks if a value appears within a defined list.
You can chain multiple conditions together using AND/OR logic to target specific types of anomalies.
Predefined Settings (Previously Anti-fraud Settings)
When configuring a rule, you can optionally enable Predefined Settings Apptrove’s native fraud filters that don’t require manual condition logic. These include
App Version Mismatch – when the app version doesn’t match expected value.
Duplicate IP – traffic from the same IP repeatedly.
Untrusted Device – based on known suspicious device signatures.
Fake Device – attributed to spoofed or emulated device data.
Toggling these ON ensures automatic detection and rejection of fraud based on Apptrove’s internal models and data signals.
Sidebar Review Panel
As you set up your rule, the right-hand summary panel continuously updates to show
Rule Name, Status
Scope of the rule (Apply On: Partner, Agency, etc.)
Type of action applied
Events being evaluated (Install/In-app)
Conditions defined or predefined filters toggled
This helps you double-check your logic at a glance before saving.
Managing Rules: Custom Rules Page
All saved rules are visible under the Custom Rules page. This table view gives you a snapshot of
Rule name and traffic type
Associated logic (custom/predefined)
Date created
Status (enabled/disabled)
Quick edit option for modifications
Note: If you used Validation Rules previously, those configurations have been automatically migrated here under the new logic, and you can now manage them in this updated interface.
Insights & Reporting
Once rules are active, use the Insights and Reports tab to evaluate performance, adjust thresholds, or spot new fraud patterns.
Reason-Wise Breakdown
Visualizes rejected traffic by fraud type — e.g., Duplicate IP, SDK Spoofing, etc. A useful high-level snapshot.
Real-Time Fraud Blocking Graph
Shows trends of blocked events per day. Track sudden spikes or new anomalies in traffic behavior.
Post Analysis Section
Displays fraud discovered after the initial attribution, helping you fine-tune rules and catch delayed fraudulent behaviors.
We are delighted to have assembled a world-class team of experienced professionals who are ready to take care of your queries and answer any questions you may have.
Feel free to reach out to us at any time by emailing us at support@apptrove.com or by using the in-platform chat feature. We'd love to hear from you!
