Using Best Practices for an Excellent Mobile App Security

Using Best Practices for an Excellent Mobile App Security

Mobile applications provide a wealth of advantages for users and businesses alike. The truth is, despite the major improvement in mobile security, mobile apps still remain a great source of leaks and malware. In fact, a recent study revealed that 70% of the most popular Android applications leak sensitive data. 

Such leaks put users at risk and is a great reputation blow to a mobile app development company. The security vulnerabilities in enterprise mobile apps can be used for major cyberattacks that cost enterprises millions of dollars annually. More than that, if you do not protect your app data the right way, the vulnerability may even be used to reverse engineer your own application. No wonder that excellent mobile app security is now considered one of the essential features of a successful application.   

To make sure you bring a safe mobile application to the market, follow the best practices in mobile app security management. Let us review these in more detail.  

1. Predict Threats 

Best Practices for an Excellent Mobile App Security

To be able to prevent any security risks to end clients, it is important to understand what can cause vulnerabilities once the application is released. Here is what puts your app at threat: 

  • Not including anti-debugging code into your app that allows cybercriminals to run an application dynamically analyzing its work under various conditions
  • SQL statements that allow for SQL injection attacks
  • The absence of verification of incoming and input data 
  • Access right management flaws or the absence of any access right management system
  • The lack of code and data encruption and the use of unsafe data transmission channels 
  • Availability of application keys and secrets in a source code  

Focusing on each case, you can address the possible issue following the respective recommendations; for example, use Azure Key Vault, a specialized tool designed to store application keys and secrets.  

2. Know Your Technology Stack

Experienced mobile app developers often have a clear understanding of what security implications each framework or platform has. For example, there are many steps to enhancing Android app security. Those working with SQL servers are also aware of SQL injection, a major security threat for all apps interacting with this database management system. 

While app owners are not obliged to know these peculiarities, they should definitely take time selecting the best mobile app development company, which would have vast experience with the preferred technology. Here, opting for the most affordable choice might result in major expenses on recovery from security breaches. 

3. Consider How Personal Data is Stored and Shared  

In mobile app development, encryption of code and predicting code vulnerabilities is not enough. You need to carefully consider what personal data the app stores and requests access to and how the input data is managed.

To rest on the safe side, it is better to request only the required minimum of information and not request access to information, which is not critical to the app functionality. Always encrypt any customer data and, preferably, set up cloud storage for it. This way, users will be able to delete their data in case of an app security breach or the loss of their device.   

4. Take Care of the Network Security

Best Practices for an Excellent Mobile App Security   

Now, mobile apps increasingly leverage API connection to enhance their features and provide a better user experience. While mobile app APIs are excellent solutions, they may pose additional risks to mobile app security. To add an extra layer of protection, you may use encrypted connections or containerization (creation of encrypted containers for secure storage or shared data). 

Certain security vulnerabilities may also used when a user connects to unsecured wifi networks; thus, it is important not only to eliminate any inherent vulnerabilities, but also educate users on the best security practices and phishing attacks.  

5. Embrace Security Testing 

Building an outstanding mobile app is only possible when developers place a high priority on mobile app testing. Mobile app security testing starts with the overview of application architecture and consideration of basic security and user authorization settings. Thus, other types of testing can be performed: 

  • Threat modeling: Simulate all possible security threats to see what vulnerabilities can be exploited. Thus, safeguard your app against these vulnerabilities
  • Check code security: Use manual or automatic code testing to check the code for threats and vulnerabilities. Automatic analysis tools are preferred here due to the speed and accuracy of testing. Besides, unlike app’s usability testing, code security testing doesn’t require a human touch.     
  • Fuzz testing: In fuzz testing, QA specialists submit invalid, unintended or random data to see how the system will behave. This is a great method for detecting vulnerabilities you might have overlooked.      

All in all, creating excellent mobile app security is well worth the efforts: it gives a competitive edge, allows entering security-sensitive markets, and ensures major savings, which are inevitable in case of a security breach. If you want to build a great and, above all, a secure application, contact Swag Soft, a leading mobile app development company in Singapore.