Prevent Mobile Identity Verification Bypass with IDAnchor™
In mobile applications, Identity Verification (IDV) is used to match live facial recognition with government-issued identification, such as a driver’s license or passport. This ID matching is performed during onboarding, payment, authentication, Know Your Customer (KYC), and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) workflows. However, in today’s mobile economy, what’s protecting the system that matches liveness to government-issued identification?
“A thing that terrifies me,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a recent interview from Bloomberg Business, “is that there are still financial institutions that will accept a voiceprint as authentication… AI has fully defeated most of the ways that people currently authenticate……”
Sam’s warning is clear: AI makes it trivial to bypass traditional identity systems via deepfakes, manipulation of biometric data and dozens of other techniques. Businesses must urgently rethink how identity is verified.
To create a trusted customer identity in a mobile app, you need something that protects IDV inputs and outputs, as well as detects any anomalies in the source environment in which the IDV performs its function. Appdome’s IDAnchor adds the Customer Identity Protection (CIP) layer, or perimeter defense, around IDV to ensure that the identity being asserted in an Android or iOS app is genuine and originates from a legitimate app, on a real device, within a trusted session.
Bypassing IDV in Mobile Apps
The attack surface in the mobile ecosystem is extensive and continually expanding. When a mobile application calls the IDV service, that call inherits several assumptions of trust, including:
- That the app calling the IDV is authentic and uncompromised
- That the account is not compromised or being used by an attacker
- That the device is real, unmodified, and the same as in prior IDVs
- The integrity of inputs like video, camera, or sensor data is certain
- That attackers have no access to biometric data, memory, OTP, etc.
Today, attackers can create and use fake apps, devices, and identities, spoof GPS, inject video feeds, take control of the camera, simulate user actions in apps, manipulate biometric and sensor data, and more. These methods enable the attacker to impersonate real users, applications, and devices, hijack identity verification flows and bypass identity verification in mobile apps.
How IDAnchor Protects IDV in Apps
CIP, and IDAnchor specifically, creates a perimeter defense around IDV workflows in mobile applications. Armed with a multi-layered identity framework, IDAnchor binds each customer identity to a living, immutable chain of trust extending from the publisher’s mobile DevOps environment to the release, instance, and device used in the IDV process.
To create the chain of trust, each part of the mobile distribution chain is fingerprinted, including the:
- Workspace ID – fingerprints the mobile app development workspace
- Release ID – fingerprints the exact app version released to app stores
- Install ID – fingerprints the app install instance
- Device ID – fingerprints the device, persistent even across resets
The Workspace ID and Device IDs persist even in the face of device resets, re-installations, app and OS upgrades, and all IDAnchor fingerprints resist manipulation from attackers. This allows mobile apps or IDV systems to go beyond an in-the-moment identity match and evaluate if the asserted identity is coming from a genuine, unaltered, and uncompromised source. If any fingerprint in the mobile value chain doesn’t match a prior fingerprint, the chain of trust is broken and customer identity is at risk.
Using Threat Signals to Prevent IDV Bypass
In addition to its chain of trust, IDAnchor provides real-time threat signals in the identity context. These threat signals can be used to tell:
- Is the device real, fake or under remote control?
- Is the app real, fake, compromised or controlled?
- Are biometric, sensor, or video inputs being captured from authentic device hardware or injected through manipulated channels?
- Are there signs of social engineering, location spoofing, or other evasion techniques?
These signals aren’t just valuable for evaluating the inputs to the IDV process—they also ensure the outputs of IDV process are real, valid and uncompromised when they are used in an application.
Top IDV Threats Eliminated by IDAnchor
By allowing the mobile application or the IDV to call the CIP layer before, during, or after the IDV process, IDAnchor helps eliminate:
- Fraud Using Stolen User Credentials – Detects when the victim’s credentials are used on an alternate or “burner” device.
- Deepfake Video Impersonation – Detects when biometric or selfie inputs are being faked via real-time video injection, face overlays, or manipulated image buffers on the victim’s device or an alternative (attacker’s) device.
- Trojan & Counterfeit Apps – Validates that IDV is initiated from the authentic app release and not a sideloaded, repackaged, or Trojan version of the app that could have been installed during a social engineering scam.
- Device Spoofing & Emulators – Prevents IDV workflows from executing on virtual devices, spoofed environments, or cloned operating systems used to mimic trusted sessions and use synthetic identities.
- Recycled Identity Fraud – Detects reuse of the same identity across multiple installs, cloned app environments, or spoofed devices, such as in referral abuse schemes where fraudsters farm onboarding incentives using synthetic or stolen identities.
- Social Engineering & KYC Fraud – Flags changes in app or device state that indicate a victim is being coerced into verifying an account on behalf of a fraudster.
In each of these cases, IDAnchor ensures that it’s safe to call IDV. It also ensures that the identity verification proceeds only when the chain of trust remains intact and there is no sign of threat to the IDV process. If the app, install, device, or session fingerprint doesn’t match a trusted baseline, or if threat signals warn that the IDV process is at risk, the IDV can be suspended, stepped up, or denied—before sensitive identity data is collected or used.
Protecting IDV in Mobile Apps Requires IDAnchor
AI-based attacks have made all identity processes vulnerable to attack, including IDV in mobile apps. Adding a CIP layer, and IDAnchor specifically, to a mobile app transforms the IDV function from a single identity match to a living and growing customer identity profile with each user engagement.
Every time the user updates the app or changes devices, the IDAnchor chain of trust is extended and revalidated. IDAnchor ensures that mobile brands aren’t just granting access to apps—they’re building a trusted customer identity profile for every user. With IDAnchor, a mobile brand can fingerprint the customer’s environment and use the fingerprint from the original trusted install and device to the next, and so on. This protects the user from impersonation, synthetic identity fraud, and account takeovers, giving brands a persistent, growing signal of trust with each interaction.
If you want to learn how IDAnchor helps you create a living customer identity for users and protects identity attributes across every session, on every device, and in every mobile app, contact us at info@appdome.com or click the button below to request a live demo from one of our identity experts.
