Install hijacking is a type of trickery on mobile phones where bad software steals credit for an app being installed. It’s a general term that covers things like “click injection“, “referrer hijacking”, and click hijacking.

What is install hijacking?

Install hijacking, like click flooding, is when real installs by real people are wrongly credited because of tricky methods. This is different from fake installs done by bots, device farms, and strange behaviors.

How install hijacking works?

Click injection is one way to do install hijacking. Here, bad software on phones finds out when an install starts and then sends fake click reports while the app is being installed. This bad software is usually hidden in apps that seem okay.

Note: CTIC = Click to install time