APP Packaging Party’s Business Secrets

Low threshold, zero cost and high income have led to the rapid formation of the "secondary packaging" gray industry chain. A team of 10 people can make a net profit of 1.5 million yuan a month.

Zhang Qi (pseudonym), who has been engaged in Android APP development for more than three years, has often felt frustrated recently.

He often lamented that if he had been willing to humble himself and join the "package party" two years ago, he might have bought a house and a car long ago and would no longer have to worry about the monthly mortgage.

The "package party" mentioned by Zhang Qi is not a niche group in the APP market.

These people (or companies), known as "packaging parties" in the industry, will unpack the most popular applications on the Internet, then insert some of the things they want to distribute and reassemble them, and finally re-release these "secondarily packaged" software to make a profit.

For a long time, most small developers like Zhang Qi could only collect meager salaries while watching the software they worked hard to develop being copied by others for profit, and they could not express their suffering in silence.

Net profit of 1.5 million in January?

Small teams developing apps for iOS and Android are often portrayed as two very different entities.

A similar story has been mentioned again and again recently: two people started a business separately to develop APP. One year later, the friend who made games on iOS earned enough for a down payment on a house, while the developer who was obsessed with Android was still borrowing money to pay the rent.

All this is due to the existence of Android "packaging party". Cheetah security expert Li Tiejun predicts that about 30% of the installation packages on the market have been tampered with by the "packaging party".

"The total number of Android program samples we have collected exceeds 20 million. If it were not for the influx of such pirated or copycat software, the total number would never be so large. The higher the installation rate of the software, the greater the possibility of being 'repackaged'." Li Tiejun told the reporter of "First Financial Daily" that once popular apps such as Defend Carrots, Plants vs. Zombies, and Fruit Ninja have all experienced "repackaged" without exception.

Behind the "hot" market is a gray industrial chain formed by "secondary packaging".

Compared with the way of earning profits by implanting Trojans and maliciously deducting fees, the profit model of "packaging parties" who make money by embedding advertisements is no different from that of many regular Android APP developers. However, since "packaging parties" directly crack other people's APPs, it is basically a business with no capital.

Since the app stores are controlled by several giants such as 360 and Baidu , small developers generally choose to cooperate in promotion in the form of pop-up advertising alliances. Developers get commissions from advertising revenue.

There are different billing methods for advertisements, such as the number of impressions, the number of clicks, the number of installation activations, etc. Taking the billing method of installation activation as an example, the current price of an Android APP download package issued by the advertising alliance is around 1 to 4 yuan, and the developer's commission is generally 70%.

"In fact, what developers can get is far less than 70%. After deducting invalid amounts, 50% is generally considered good," said an Android APP developer.

Zhang Qi gave an example, saying that the advertising alliance currently offers the Android installation package of Dianping for about 4 yuan. The advertising alliance distributes the package to developers and settles the bill based on the number of registrations. Developers can get 1.5 to 2 yuan from each user who clicks to download and successfully registers the Dianping installation package through their own APP.

Among these Android apps, the most valuable are games.

"The Android package of a game can cost 5 to 6 yuan per piece. For popular high-ARPU (average revenue per user) games, the activation price for a single installation is also relatively high," said Zhang Qi.

In addition to zero cost, the technical threshold for "secondary packaging" is also very low. "Sometimes you don't need to form a team, one person can do it." Zhang Qi said.

Driven by huge profits, a gray industry chain of "secondary packaging" has quickly formed. Zhao Yu, vice president of Bangbang Security, one of the earliest companies engaged in the APP encryption industry in China, previously publicly stated that a team of 10 people could make a net profit of 1.5 million yuan in a month by packaging viruses.

The risks of “double packaging”

Huge profits without any investment are not the worst news. What is more dangerous is that after cracking an APP, the "package party" will add malicious programs such as viruses, advertising links or fee-charging instructions. Most users who are "hit" will encounter frequent advertising harassment, traffic loss, and in serious cases, passwords and personal privacy may be stolen.

"In the past, 'packaging parties' mainly targeted games and tool software, but now, some malicious 'packaging parties' are targeting payment software and directly deduct fees maliciously. This is a relatively large hidden danger." Li Tiejun said.

What’s even more painful is that once users mistakenly download and use “repackaged” software and suffer losses, most software developers have to “take the blame” for it.

Kan Zhigang, executive vice president of China Mobile Index Big Data Mobile Internet Research Institute, said at the China Mobile Application Security Media Convergence Summit that currently about 12.6% of mobile apps are malicious applications.

In November 2014, the institute conducted security tests on the top 100 apps in several major domestic app stores and found that the top-ranked apps were all subject to serious mobile security attacks such as cracking and tampering. The tampering attack rate of WeChat apps reached 15.28%. There were a total of 514 WeChat apps in major app stores, of which 79 were fake. In addition, the existing security mechanisms of more than 95% of mobile banking clients have serious vulnerabilities.

However, this has spawned a security hardening market where the APP client is encrypted and protected with a shell before entering the application market to combat reverse engineering, code injection and other hacking activities.

Most of the security hardening solutions currently available on the market mainly rely on shelling and encryption operations, and can only defend against static analysis and simple reverse engineering.

But at the same time, the problem of malicious program hardening has begun to become a new concern.

It is reported that Dr. He Nengqiang of the National Internet Emergency Center publicly stated at the "2014 China Cyber ​​Security Forum" that in 2014, more than 70,000 hardened security applications were monitored on the Internet, and there were more than 7,000 malicious programs.

According to He Nengqiang, in the first half of 2012, the National Internet Emergency Center received a report about a counterfeit WeChat client, and the malicious program had been reinforced.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.