Mobile Application Security

Here are the 8 Best Practices for Mobile Application Security in 2022

Mobile applications have been the biggest source of revenue for Businesses. Its revenue summed up to $133 billion in 2021 and is anticipated to reach $935 billion in 2023. However, this phenomenal surge has its price of cyber-attack threats. Due to this, mobile application security plays a pivotal role.According to the report produced by the check point research “mobile security report 2021”, 97% of organizations have experienced mobile app attacks, along with 46% of employees installing at least 1 malicious app. Business and user data security has been raised as a result of this interaction with brands for various purposes. With no proper security measures taken, they are exposing sensitive data to brands through applications. For that reason, it’s important to take preventive measures to evade data risks and protect the consumers.Below we have listed down the best ways that ensure mobile app security for your devices.

8 Best Practices for Your Mobile App Security in 2022

Data Encryptions

Utilization of mobile apps in the devices or the OS is growing tremendously. so, you need to make sure that the exchanged data do not get exposed in case the device or the OS enters into vulnerability.Data can be encrypted across applications as one way to accomplish this problem. During encryption, the data is scrambled so that hackers cannot read it. Data encryption can be done in two ways:
  • Symmetric encryption.
  • Asymmetric encryption.
Encryption and decryption of data using symmetric encryption uses the same security key. Asymmetric encryption, however, uses separate security keys to encrypt and decrypt data. For a good mobile app security assurance, it is always a good idea to follow secure coding practices to keep them more secure.

Secure Codes

Many pieces of code make up every application at its core. Due to this, it’s very important to have secure codes.As reported by NowSecure, “82 percent of Android devices were prone to at least one of the 25 vulnerabilities in the Android operating system”. As a result, a bug-free and vulnerability-free source code must be maintained.To ensure code security and that there are no vulnerabilities that the hackers are capable of exploiting, mobile application testing is essential.

User Authentications

User-generated content (UGC) is the most common type of contribution to mobile applications. UGC can be exposed to cyber-attacks because of no proper user authentication in the first place. A social engineering attack can be used by the hackers to access vital information about the users.Through UGC, malicious injection becomes very easy once they have access to the user accounts. Authentication processes such as multi-factor authentication can be used here. A one-time password, token, security key, or other additional layers of security is added over the traditional authentication process.Two-factor authentication, for example, involves receiving an OTP on the device to validate the user’s identity. Compliance is another important aspect of mobile application security.

Compliance & Integrity

For a mobile app to be launched, certain security requirements must be met. The app store may require the developers to follow a few specific security measures under the app store direction. An app could be downloaded and installed through this process.App stores are used in modern smartphones to distribute apps or software that needs to be code signed. Only pre-vetted applications are distributed through this process.In addition to confirming the developer’s identity and the security requirements of the app, the app store validates the app’s security requirements. The application is available for download if everything complies with the guidelines of the operating system.Several coding sign options are available in the market, so it doesn’t need to seem all daunting. A cheap code signing certificate ensures compliance and integrity of your application. It is considered to be cost-effective. It also signifies that it comes from the genuine publisher and that the code has never been tampered with before.Users are provided with a public key that is used to decrypt the information related to their identity, which is encrypted with the help of this certificate. An Application Programming Interface is another aspect of app security that is very essential to understand.

Secure APIs

Third-party APIs play an important role in integrating third-party services as well as improving functionality. It also facilitates the exchange of data among heterogeneous systems. However, for greater app security, APIs should be secured and data that is exchanged should not be exposed. Utilizing data access authorizations is one way to ensure APIs security. There are a few open source and Commercial tools available for automated API testing in the market. It is very crucial to understand the requirement and threats the app and its data might encounter, before opting for a security testing tool.

Security Triggers

If someone tampers with the source code of your application, you can use specific triggers to alert your systems. To detect malicious injections and tampering in cloud-native applications, AWS Lambda functions can be used.

Data Privileges

By identifying data privileges, you can also minimize the risk of malicious cyber-attacks against your application. Provide limited access to sensitive data to users according to the principle of least privilege. By doing so, sensitive information will not be accessible to someone without data access or with malicious intent.

Secure Containers

Security keys is the most crucial aspect of encryption. If you are encrypting data for your application, don’t store security keys in local data centers.In most organizations, sensitive information is stored in local data centers in hybrid clouds, where you can use secure containers to protect the keys. AES encryption and SHA-256 hashing, for example, can ensure the security of such keys with advanced security protocols.

Bottom Line

As the usage of various mobile applications by users grow on daily basis, the need to secure and protect the data grows too. Users must prioritize the security of their mobile applications. As hackers are turning more efficient at malicious injection attacks and many more that would provide them a backstreet to access the data very quickly.Hence, the user should focus on improving their security to secure their data that prevents the hackers to take control of the applications. We hope that the above tips have genuinely helped you and we also hope that you’ve learnt the cruciality of mobile application security.

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