In recent years, with the increased use of mobile devices in the corporate environment the number of malicious code and detected vulnerabilities in mobile applications also has grown. Due to the widespread use of hacking mechanisms for iOS and Android platforms, the likelihood of unintentional introduction of malicious code to a mobile device and enterprise apps is higher than ever.
Mobile Devices Within a Corporate Environment
The management of mobile devices and the use of enterprise mobile app development services is becoming a critical task. The active penetration of mobile apps into the corporate business processes, lead to the need to solve a number of problems:
- development of policies for the management of mobile devices purchased by employees
- ensuring compliance with policies and regulations for the use of these devices
- providing access, deployment, and updating of applications
- ensuring support for users in the operation of mobile devices to access corporate data.
Enterprise mobile app development includes the creation of applications designed to automate business processes and operations that comprise the activities of a particular organization. With Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM), business operations are carried out transparently with a clear and secure access hierarchy.
Enterprise mobile applications grant plenty of benefits:
- facilitate process management while providing added value
- ensure fast and effective cooperation
- increase employee efficiency
- reduce operating costs
- simplify workloads
- facilitate onboarding and employee training, etc.
As organizations reach even higher stages of mobile transformation maturity, they expand their corporate applications with even more features such as supply chain management, customer relationships, enterprise resources, financial transactions, etc. Enterprises spend big sums to implement mobile app functionality in their enterprise management and support. These enterprise mobile applications need to be secure in order not only to protect investments, but also to provide the corporate environment with security arrangements. It is a well-known fact that applications are one of the main objectives of attacks, both from insiders and from the outside.
Enterprise App Safety Gaps
Companies invest heavily in their enterprise applications, in hardware platforms, and in employees who will need to support them. And in most implementations, investments in the safety of these projects comprise only a tiny fraction of the total budget. However, these investments are not always optimal. Solutions with limited functionality can be chosen, without a comprehensive understanding of the available options. Typically, security problems are not even related to insufficient investment in the protection of corporate systems. Security gaps usually appear because companies don’t look into detail and don’t realize the existence of a threat.
Some enterprise app developers use deep packet inspections to check for malicious code and understand how the application works. Users often check metadata collected on the network in order to evaluate the utilized queries. These requests are collected and analyzed to create a certain model of “normal” behavior and actions in the application. But detecting fraud or abuse with this approach is extremely difficult.
Products originally designed to provide security for corporate mobile applications and databases are more effective when used for the target application. However, such enterprise app development is very difficult. But only the knowledge of the internal structure of the application and the requests used allows you to focus on the most vulnerable places. This approach allows to detect unauthorized actions and simplify the data security service operation.
Leading Causes of Security Breaches
Large companies often shun security solutions proposed by enterprise mobile app development services. They fear that these systems may disrupt the application, reduce performance, or affect usability. This factor contributes to the emergence of security gaps in enterprise applications. However, there are more reasons for risky apps. Consider the following omissions:
- Focuses on the wrong security tools. Companies often invest in common assessment tools that do not provide in-depth management and control of corporate applications. In some cases, companies refer to the collection of activity logs of all applications using SIEM (Security Information and Event Management). However, the data collection methods used by such solutions do not allow collecting the necessary information for an adequate assessment of user actions.
- Poor awareness of products designed specifically for protecting enterprise applications. Enterprise application vendors provide security recommendations for protection, but cannot offer real products to purchase them. Those who provide security usually know little about the operation of these applications. They cannot independently determine which deployment model will be effective.
- Lack of continuous monitoring. Insufficient control of corporate application activity and poor understanding of the principles of its operation impact the proper ensuring of security. A tool for remote monitoring of application events should provide data collection from different sources and centralized storage for subsequent analysis. Consider this a mixture of SIEM and IDS (Intrusion Detection System). It should be able to correctly understand events in the application up to the transaction level and be able to analyze events using various methods. They include heuristic analysis, metadata research, user behavior, attributes, black and white lists of commands.
- Ignoring API getaways. Large companies often use some internal applications that have a web-based interface for working with clients. Also, in the last couple of years, some companies use API gateways to provide remote users with secure access. They offer an abstract level similar to the functions of internal applications for common modern software interfaces: RESTful API. This gateway allows you to control client versions, hacked devices and maintain policy compliance.
- Lack of penetration testing. Penetration testing is an indispensable thing for assessing the security of a corporate application. It allows you to look at the system from the other side – the attacker. Only a test simulating a real attack will allow you to find those gaps in the security systems of an enterprise application. Often they remain outside the scope of attention of developers and employees of the information security department.
An integral part of the successful functioning of any company is an effective strategy for ensuring the security of enterprise applications. Thus, if you need help with developing a strong protection system for your corporate network, then SwagSoft is your choice! We are an enterprise mobile app development company based in Singapore providing top-notch security solutions for our clients. Our highly-qualified team will empower your business with truly essential technology service.
Join the leading enterprise mobile app company today.