How to Detect Emulator in Kotlin

Emulators are powerful tools for developers, but in the wrong hands they become a major security risk. Fraudsters use them to automate fake traffic, bypass device checks, and even reverse-engineer apps. Luckily, you can detect emulator environments in Kotlin and block them before damage is done.

What is Emulator?

An emulator is a software-based environment that mimics a real Android device. While legitimate for app testing, attackers exploit emulators for:

• Click fraud – simulating thousands of devices to inflate ad revenue.

• Credential stuffing – running automated scripts against login systems.

• App tampering – analyzing and modifying your app in a safe, sandboxed space.

Emulators pretends to be a real device, but it’s just software running on a PC. Detecting it crucial for protecting your app’s integrity.

More about emulators and their usage in gaming:

Emulators in Gaming: Threats and Detections

Introducing Multi-Instancing Detection for freeRASP

How to Detect Emulator Usage?

Detecting emulator environments is tricky because attackers constantly adapt.

Basic checks for emulators include looking at:

• Device HW statistics: device model, CPU info, screen size/resolution

• Suspicious system files

• Suspicious processes

However, these are not enough thought, since they are easy to bypass. Instead, rely on specialised, continuously updated SDKs.

These can provide:

• Newly updated detection techniques and emulator detectors

• Deeper check of device

• Nice API for end developer to interact with, rather than reinventing a wheel

freeRASP (by Talsec)

• Strong emulator detections

• Actively maintained (changelog)

• Comes with 14 extra detections like app integrity, Frida and hooking, root/jailbreak detection, debugging, screenshots, etc.

• Used by 6000+ apps; #1 Mobile RASP SDK by popularity (link)

Integration Example:

Talsec.start(applicationContext)

override fun onEmulatorDetected() {
    Log.w("freeRASP", "Emulator detected!")
    // Optionally block sensitive actions or warn the user
}