Mobile applications continue to be the prime target for all cybercrimes. And in this age of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) where employees mostly merge their personal and professional requirements into a single device, security matters become more critical.
There are two best practices to build secure mobile apps – passwords and end-to-end encryptions.
The number of mobile applications is touching new heights every day. We can see mobile apps for shopping, relevant projects, ticket booking, movie tickets, food delivery, cab booking, future events and more, attesting to the growing demand for mobile applications in today’s businesses. Google Play Store and Apple App Store are the two famous mobile app distributors. The growing demand is encouraging more and more businesses to embrace this technology to remain ahead of the competition.
Are mobile apps secure? – This one question always keeps disturbing businesses and users.
Here, we will discuss the six mobile app security best practices to develop safe and secure applications:
1. Encrypt Source Code
Most of the codes in a native mobile app are kept on the clients-end, which makes malware easily find out the weak points inside the design and source code, giving a chance to attack the apps. This type of threat can badly hit your company’s reputation. And, when you get your app developed. You make sure developers are careful while building your app and also add tools to spot the weak points as well as report security vulnerabilities. And, applications must be strong enough to foil any tampering for attacks. The ideal way is to encrypt the application source code and protect it from these attacks.
2. Penetration Tests To Secure Your Mobile Apps
It is a good practice to test your application regularly against unpredictably created security set-ups before you decide to deploy your application. Penetration testing is of great help to prevent security risks and vulnerabilities against your mobile apps. Finding the gaps in the system is crucial. However, the gaps or weak points in the system can grow to become potential threats, later giving access to mobile data and sensitive information.
3. Protect the Data During Transit
However, the data that is shifted from the client to the server, and must be protected against data thefts and privacy leaks. SSL and VPN tunnels are highly recommended to ensure that user data is safe with stringent security measures.
4. High-level Verification is a Must To Secure Your Mobile Apps
The lack of high-level authentication leads to security breaches. Developers should design the apps in such a way that it only accepts strong alphanumeric passwords. And, on top of that, it is better to make it required for users to change their passwords periodically. For extremely sensitive apps, you can strengthen the security with biometric authentication using fingerprints or retina scans. Encouraging the users to ensure authentication would be the recommended way to avoid security breaches.
5. Protect App Backend
Most mobile apps have client-server (backend) systems. It is necessary to put security measures to protect the backend against malicious attacks. Developers many times assume that apps are programmed to access APIs can only access the backend. But you should validate all APIs in compliance with the mobile platform that you are aiming to develop. Note, that API validation and transport mechanisms can be different on different platforms.
6. Avoid Storing Sensitive Data
Many developers prefer to store sensitive data in the local memory of devices to protect them from users’ access. However, it is best to minimise storing sensitive data or altogether avoid storing them as it might invite security risks. But, you can also encrypt your data containers or key chains if you have no choice but to avoid storing them. Moreover, make you can cut down the log by adding the auto-delete feature, which helps in automatically deleting data at some intervals.
Conclusion
Seeing the rising cybercrime cases that are mostly occurring on mobile devices, there is no doubt that mobile app security issues have become a priority for companies. It helps users from installing unreliable applications. And the best practices discussed above will be of great help to develop a secure mobile application for your customers.
