Sputnik Improved its Detection Rate for Malicious Reviews by 14% after Integrating the SysIntegrity Function

2 min readFeb 3, 2021

Overview

International News Agency and Radio Sputnik is a news agency with international reputation. Its news app Sputnik offers high-quality, international news stories covering breaking news, major events, in-depth reports, online video ads, and exclusive interviews. After Sputnik integrated the SysIntegrity function, it improved its detection rate for malicious reviews by 14%.

Challenges

Dmitry Priemov, head of mobile from Sputnik, said, “We have found malicious attacks on Sputnik’s ads. So we started to block users of the app with changed signature, because it definitely means that APK was modified to remove the ads.” He added, “We also needed to quickly determine whether the malicious reviews of our app have been posted from devices with a changed signature.”

Solution

“We regard system integrity as an important part of evaluating device risks.” said Dmitry Priemov. HUAWEI Safety Detect is a multi-dimensional open security detection service. Its SysIntegrity function helps app developers quickly build security capabilities which protect user privacy and app security. “By integrating SysIntegrity, we have clear understanding whether the app is running on rooted device.” Dmitry Priemov said.

SysIntegrity works using the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) and digital signing certificate. It helps Sputnik check whether the device running the app is secure, and detects security risks such as if the device has been rooted. If risks are detected, the app can restrict that device from using certain functions, which prevents the malicious cracking of in-app ads. In addition, with SysIntegrity, the app can skip malicious reviews from some users, just as Dmitry Priemov said, “Our support team just skips any claims from such users or replies them that they have to format their devices and reinstall the app from official store.”

Dmitry Priemov said, “Since integrating SysIntegrity, Sputnik has improved its detection rate for malicious reviews by 14%.”