How to Detect PixBankBot Trojan in Android Apps

Last updated January 30, 2025 by Appdome

This Knowledge Base article describes how to use Appdome’s AI/ML in your CI/CD pipeline to continuously deliver plugins that Detect PixBankBot Trojan in Android apps.

What is PixBankBot Trojan?

PixBankBot is an Android banking trojan targeting Brazilian users and banking apps. It spreads through malicious apps and phishing links, often disguised as legitimate banking applications. Once installed, PixBankBot uses Android’s Accessibility Services to steal sensitive financial information, such as login credentials, credit card details, and intercepts SMS messages, including two-factor authentication (2FA) codes. It also employs overlay attacks to trick users into entering their information into fake interfaces. Its primary goal is financial theft, allowing attackers to manipulate transactions and steal funds, particularly through Brazil’s Pix payment system. PixBankBot poses a significant threat to user privacy and financial security by conducting fraudulent transactions without users’ awareness.

How does Appdome Detect PixBankBot Trojan in Android Apps?

Taking all the above into consideration, you can use Appdome’s Detect Bank Trojan Apps feature to protect against PixBankBot as well as use a combination of the following Appdome detection and protection methods:

  • Prevent Accessibility Services Malware – Prevents malicious actions taken by malware that exploit Android’s AccessibilityService, which when abused can be used to intercept sensitive inputs like passwords and 2FA codes, take screenshots, and simulate user actions such as taps and swipes. This allows attackers to manipulate apps, steal data, impersonate the real user, or perform fraudulent transactions without the user’s knowledge.
  • Google Play Store Signature Validation – Protects against fake apps, clones, and masquerading, which malware often do to trick users into performing harmful actions.
  • Prevent ATS Malware – Detects active transaction hijacking attempts, blocks the attempt, and notifies the user.
  • RASP – Prevents PixBankBot from injecting itself into installed apps and repackaging them. Also includes anti-tampering, anti-debugging, anti-emulator, and other protections against dynamic attacks at runtime.
  • Code Obfuscation – Protects against decompiling and malicious reverse engineering.
  • Root Detection – Protects mobile apps from running on rooted devices, which bypass Android’s security controls. Rooting exposes apps to tampering, data theft, and malware by giving attackers elevated access to system files and app data.
  • MitM Attack Prevention – Prevents PixBankBot from intercepting or hijacking sessions to harvest or steal data.
  • Block App Overlay Attacks – Detects and prevents fake/malicious screen overlays from displaying on top of the app screen and concealing the legitimate app screen. Mobile malware and Trojans like PixBankBot use overlay attacks to trick users into revealing sensitive information or performing harmful actions inadvertently.
  • Keylogging Prevention – Prevents the use of malicious keyloggers which may be used to intercept two-factor authentication codes or harvest sensitive information.

Prerequisites for Using Appdome's Detect PixBankBot Plugins:

To use Appdome’s mobile app security build system to Detect PixBankBot Trojan , you’ll need:

How to Implement Detect PixBankBot Trojan in Android Apps Using Appdome

On Appdome, follow these simple steps to create self-defending Android Apps that Detect PixBankBot Trojan without an SDK or gateway:

  1. Designate the Mobile App to be protected.

    1. Upload an app via the Appdome Mobile Defense platform GUI or via Appdome’s DEV-API or CI/CD Plugins.

    2. Android Formats: .apk or .aab
    3. Detect PixBankBot is compatible with: Java, JS, C++, C#, Kotlin, Flutter, React Native, Unity, Xamarin, Cordova and other Android apps.
  2. Select the defense: Detect PixBankBot.

      1. Create and name the Fusion Set (security template) that will contain the Detect PixBankBot feature as shown below:
        fusion set that contains Detect PixBankBot

        Figure 1: Fusion Set that will contain the Detect PixBankBot feature

      2. Follow the steps in Sections 2.2-2.2.2 of this article to add the Detect PixBankBot feature to your Fusion Set via the Appdome Console.

      3. When you enable Detect Bank Trojan Apps you'll notice that the Fusion Set you created in step 2.1 now bears the icon of the protection category that contains Detect PixBankBot.

        Fusion Set applied Detect PixBankBot

        Figure 2: Fusion Set that displays the newly added Detect PixBankBot protection
        Note: Annotating the Fusion Set to identify the protection(s) selected is optional only (not mandatory).

      4. Open the Fusion Set Detail Summary by clicking the “...” symbol on the far-right corner of the Fusion Set. Copy the Fusion Set ID from the Fusion Set Detail Summary (as shown below): fusion Set Detail Summary image

        Figure 3: Fusion Set Detail Summary

      5. Follow the instructions below to use the Fusion Set ID inside any standard mobile DevOps or CI/CD toolkit like Bitrise, Jenkins, Travis, Team City, Circle CI or other system:
        1. Refer to the Appdome API Reference Guide for API building instructions.
        2. Look for sample APIs in Appdome’s GitHub Repository.
    1. Add the Detect PixBankBot feature to your security template.

      1. Navigate to Build > Anti ATO tab > Android Trojans section in the Appdome Console.
      2. Toggle On Detect Bank Trojan Apps > Detect PixBankBot.
        Note: The checkmark feature Detect PixBankBot is enabled by default, as shown below. Detect PixBankBot option

        Figure 4: Selecting Detect PixBankBot Trojan

        Note: The Appdome Platform displays the Mobile Operation Systems supported by each defense in real-time. For more details, see our OS Support Policy KB.

      3. Configure the User Experience Options for Detect PixBankBot:
        With Threat-Events™ OFF, Appdome provides several user experience options for mobile brands and developers.
        1. App Compromise Notification: Customize the pop-up or toast Appdome uses to notify the user when a threat is present while using the protected mobile app.
        2. Short message Option. This is available for mobile devices that allow a banner notification for security events.
        3. Localized Message Option. Allows Appdome users to support global languages in security notifications.

          Localized Message

          Figure 5: Default User Experience Options for Appdome’s PixBankBot Trojan

        4. Detect PixBankBot Threat Code™. Appdome uses AI/ML to generate a unique code each time Detect PixBankBot is triggered by an active threat on the mobile device. Use the code in Appdome Threat Resolution Center™ to help end users identify, find and resolve active threats on the personal mobile devices.
    2. Initiate the build command either by clicking Build My App at the bottom of the Build Workflow (shown in Figure 4) or via your CI/CD as described in Section 2.1.4.
    Congratulations!  The Detect PixBankBot protection is now added to the mobile app
  3. Certify the Detect PixBankBot feature in Android Apps

    After building Detect PixBankBot, Appdome generates a Certified Secure™ certificate to guarantee that the Detect PixBankBot protection has been added and is protecting the app. To verify that the Detect PixBankBot protection has been added to the mobile app, locate the protection in the Certified Secure™ certificate as shown below: Detect PixBankBot shown in Certificate secure

    Figure 6: Certified Secure™ certificate

    Each Certified Secure™ certificate provides DevOps and DevSecOps organizations the entire workflow summary, audit trail of each build, and proof of protection that Detect PixBankBot has been added to each Android app. Certified Secure provides instant and in-line DevSecOps compliance certification that Detect PixBankBot and other mobile app security features are in each build of the mobile app.

Using Threat-Events™ for PixBankBot Trojan Intelligence and Control in Android Apps

Appdome Threat-Events™ provides consumable in-app mobile app attack intelligence and defense control when PixBankBot Trojan is detected. To consume and use Threat-Events™ for PixBankBot Trojan in Android Apps, use registerReceiver in the Application OnCreate, and the code samples for Threat-Events™ for PixBankBot Trojan shown below.

The specifications and options for Threat-Events™ for PixBankBot Trojan are:

Threat-Event™ Elements Detect PixBankBot Trojan Method Detail
Appdome Feature Name Detect PixBankBot
Threat-Event Mode
OFF, IN-APP DEFENSE Appdome detects, defends and notifies user (standard OS dialog) using customizable messaging.
ON, IN-APP DETECTION Appdome detects the attack or threat and passes the event in a standard format to the app for processing (app chooses how and when to enforce).
ON, IN-APP DEFENSE Uses Appdome Enforce mode for any attack or threat and passes the event in a standard format to the app for processing (gather intel on attacks and threats without losing any protection).
Certified Secure™ Threat Event Check x
Visible in ThreatScope™ x
Developer Parameters for Detecting PixBankBot Trojan Threat-Event™
Threat-Event NAME
Threat-Event DATA reasonData
Threat-Event CODE reasonCode
Threat-Event REF
Threat-Event SCORE
currentThreatEventScore Current Threat-Event score
threatEventsScore Total Threat-events score
Threat-Event Context Keys
message Message displayed for the user on event
failSafeEnforce Timed enforcement against the identified threat
externalID The external ID of the event which can be listened via Threat Events
osVersion OS version of the current device
deviceModel Current device model
deviceManufacturer The manufacturer of the current device
fusedAppToken The task ID of the Appdome fusion of the currently running app
kernelInfo Info about the kernel: system name, node name, release, version and machine.
carrierPlmn PLMN of the device. Only available for Android devices.
deviceID Current device ID
reasonCode Reason code of the occurred event
buildDate Appdome fusion date of the current application
devicePlatform OS name of the current device
carrierName Carrier name of the current device. Only available for Android.
updatedOSVersion Is the OS version up to date
deviceBrand Brand of the device
deviceBoard Board of the device
buildUser Build user
buildHost Build host
sdkVersion Sdk version
timeZone Time zone
deviceFaceDown Is the device face down
locationLong Location longitude conditioned by location permission
locationLat Location latitude conditioned by location permission
locationState Location state conditioned by location permission
wifiSsid Wifi SSID
wifiSsidPermissionStatus Wifi SSID permission status
threatCode The last six characters of the threat code specify the OS, allowing the Threat Resolution Center to address the attack on the affected device.

With Threat-Events™ enabled (turned ON), Android developers can get detailed attack intelligence and granular defense control in Android applications and create amazing user experiences for all mobile end users when PixBankBot Trojan is detected.


The following is a code sample for native Android apps, which uses all values in the specification above for Detect PixBankBot:


Important! Replace all placeholder instances of <Context Key> with the specific name of your threat event context key across all language examples. This is crucial to ensure your code functions correctly with the intended event data. For example, The <Context Key> could be the message, externalID, OS Version, reason code, etc.



Using Appdome, there are no development or coding prerequisites to build secured Apps by using Detect PixBankBot. There is no SDK and no library to code or implement in the app and no gateway to deploy in your network. All protections are built into each app and the resulting app is self-defending and self-protecting.

Releasing and Publishing Mobile Apps with Detect PixBankBot

After successfully securing your app by using Appdome, there are several available options to complete your project, depending on your app lifecycle or workflow. These include:

Related Articles:

How Do I Learn More?

If you have any questions, please send them our way at support.appdome.com or via the chat window on the Appdome platform.

Thank you!

Thanks for visiting Appdome! Our mission is to secure every app on the planet by making mobile app security easy. We hope we’re living up to the mission with your project.

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