Secure-D Sweeping International Cybersecurity Awards

Upstream’s Antifraud Platform Walks Away with Double Accolades at the Africacom Awards and UK Business Tech Awards

Leading mobile technology company Upstream announces that its mobile anti-fraud platform, Secure-D, protecting mobile users and safeguarding mobile operators’ revenues walked away with two top industry awards across the globe.

Secure-D was awarded Security Product of the Year at AfricaCom, and also Best Application of Tech Security at the UK Business Tech Awards at ceremonies in Cape Town and London on November 13th.

Upstream’s security platform combines machine learning algorithms with payment processing workflows to protect mobile operators and their users against online transaction fraud and data depletion, caused my malware and other online threats. In 2018 alone, Secure-D having processed over 1.8 billion mobile transactions, detected and blocked over 63,000 malicious apps in 16 countries. The security platform identifies and blocks over 170 new malware every single day.

Secure-D’s cutting-edge fraud detection technology, which identifies and blocks fraud in real time, guarantees that all mobile transactions are secure. Secure-D’s clearing process ensures that no user is charged until the validity of the subscription has been certified. Following the installation of Secure-D, mobile operators witness a significant drop in user complaints, with consumers being saved tens of millions of dollars’ worth of fraudulent charges.

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Head of Secure-D, Dimitris Maniatis, said regarding the two awards the security platform received: “In the past two years we have been working tirelessly bringing Secure-D to life and then to market with the single-minded vision of making mobile internet safe for the next billion consumers in emerging markets. Seeing in practice the difference we make and topping that with the recognition from international fora makes it all worthwhile. A big thank you to all the teams at Upstream for making our vision a reality and to our partners around the globe for trusting Secure-D with the security of their mobile transactions”.

Since inception, Secure-D has been raising awareness on the mobile malware led ad fraud through openly sharing with the security community, the industry and the media, its platform data to expose cases of pre-installed malware on android devices and android apps on Google Play acting as malware.

In the course of the past six months Secure-D reported on the suspicious background activity of five very popular and seemingly innocent Android apps: 4shared, a popular file sharing app, Vidmate, a video downloader, Weather Forecast a preinstalled app on Alcatel devices, Snaptube, another video and audio app, and ai.type, an on-screen keyboard app. These with a total of nearly 700 million downloads, were or had been at some point available on Google Play. In these five cases alone, Secure-D detected and blocked 340 million suspicious mobile transactions. These investigations were covered by major international media outlets, including the WSJ, TechCrunch, Buzzfeed, Forbes, The Daily Mail and others.

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In July 2019, as part of its mission to make the mobile internet safe, Upstream published a new resource, the Secure-D Index. This freely-available resource aggregates all the suspicious Android apps globally, so that anyone can easily find out what apps represent a threat to their privacy and pocket. This is the first ever publicly-available mobile malware analytics index.

Guy Krief, CEO of Upstream, commented: “Mobile advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry on the rise and a very fertile ground for fraud. It is impressive and cause for concern that one single Android app can be responsible for millions of suspicious transactions over just a few months. The growing sophistication of disguised malware calls for a more vigilant approach on behalf of the whole industry, with increased awareness and education of all involved. On our part, the fight against digital fraud requires ongoing technological innovation”.

Mobile advertising revenues are set to rise to $186bn next year – fraud is predicted to hit $44bn within three years. Upstream believes that left unchecked, advertising fraud will stall the market, reduce operator value-added revenues and inevitably lead to higher tariffs for everyday services. Also affecting consumers greatly fraud, eats up their data allowance, brings unwanted charges, messes with the performance of their device, targets and collects user personal data.

Secure-D helps build the trust of mobile users –much needed in emerging markets- and supports them in becoming fully engaged participants in the data era.

The AfricaCom Awards, celebrate the achievements of the best companies, solutions, products and personalities improving connectivity and driving Africa towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution. AfricaCom is Africa’s largest technology, media and telecommunications conference & exhibition. The event is part of the Connecting Africa event series showcasing the latest advancements and opportunities in technology and the digital ecosystem. Taking place in Cape Town from 12 -14 November 2019, AfricaCom is now in its 22nd year.

The UK Business Tech Awards celebrate the UK’s finest tech businesses and rewards innovative and exceptional application of technology to transform and grow businesses. The awards celebrate companies, individuals, applications, use of data, deals and transformation through technology.

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