Mobile App Security Risks and Their Impact on Your Business

Mobile app security is an evolving issue. The requirement for greater functionality and features and the rapid roll-out of software updates frequently result in the loss of mobile security.

The biggest mobile app development company challenge is the growing security risk, especially in avoiding data breaches. According to research, more than 10,573 malicious mobile applications were blocked daily in 2018.

As technology improves and advances, it is now simpler to develop and deploy applications, and it is now easy to hack a mobile application's security, as developers are writing code that is not secure.

However, how do you avoid such threats to your mobile app security strategy?

Let's find out.

The Top Mobile App Safety Risks as well as Strategies to Mitigate them in Business

These are the most significant security threats to mobile apps and methods to reduce them:

Insecure Communication

A typical mobile application transfers data in a server-client manner. When an application sends data, it connects to the internet and the mobile device's network.

Attackers could exploit security flaws in mobile devices to steal sensitive information and user information while traversing the internet.

How Can You Prevent Insecure Communication?

Only create a secure connection after validating your identity with the server used to establish the connection. If you're using SSL/TLS for your mobile app, make sure you have it installed in the transport channels the mobile application uses to transfer sensitive information like session tokens, credentials, etc.

Lack of Input Validation

Input validation involves evaluating input data to ensure that it's properly formatted and preventing data that is not properly formed. This may contain dangerous code or cause malfunctions within the mobile application.

What is the effect of insufficient input validation on mobile apps?

What makes it an issue with mobile security? Here's why:

Suppose the mobile application fails to authenticate input properly. In that case, this puts the application at risk of being accessed by attackers who may inject malware into data inputs and gain access to confidential information within the app or compromise the backend data storage.

How can you prevent weak input validation?

You can apply input validation, making use of programming techniques to facilitate the efficient application of data accuracy, like:

minimum and maximum value ranges Look for dates, numeric parameters, and length checks in strings.

Validation of inputs against XML Schema and JSON Scheme

The ranges of minimum and maximum values Look for strong minimum and maximum lengths Look for dates and numeric parameters.

Accepting known good input rather than simply rejecting known bad input is a better way of preventing attacks caused by inadequate input authentication. This will result in more rigorous controls if implemented properly.

Insecure Data Storage

Secure data storage can be found at various locations within mobile apps, including binaries, data storage, SQL databases, cookie stores, and many more. When you use insecure data storage, you run the risk of losing data. Problems may compromise it with frameworks, jailbroken phones, mobile malware, or other threats.

How can you prevent insecure data storage?

Do not use the "MODE World READABLE" or "MODE World WRITABLE" options for IPC files, as they don't provide the possibility of controlling the data format or restricting access to the data to specific programs.

But, if you wish to share data with other apps, you should consider using a content provider that offers specific write and read permissions to other apps and that can change permissions on a case-by-case basis.

Client Code Security

Security issues with code are fairly frequent in mobile applications.

Many of these issues are difficult to spot through manual code review; you can use automated, third-party tools for fuzzing or static analysis. These tools can help you identify problems with injection, insecure storage of data, weak encryption, and other security problems.

But the automated tools aren't sufficient by themselves; you need to conduct a manual review to identify security risks that automation cannot detect.

How Do You Avoid Bad Code Quality Problems?

Use consistent and secure programming methods that don't create vulnerable code. For example, if you are using buffers, be sure that you verify that the size of the buffer data that is incoming does not exceed that of the buffer you want to use.

Utilize automation to identify buffer overflows and memory leaks through third-party static analysis tools.

Insufficient authorization and authentication controls

Insecure or missing authentication mechanisms allow attackers to execute functions anonymously in the mobile app or the backend server utilized by the application.

Security requirements for authentication for mobile applications can differ from traditional web-based applications in that, in mobile apps, users do not need to be connected during their entire session.

What can you do to prevent the pitfalls of poor authentication and authorization?

There are a variety of ways to use proper authentication and authorization for enhanced security on mobile devices:

Make sure the server executes the authentication request. After successful authentication, the data will be loaded onto the device. This ensures that data is loaded only after successful authentication.

If data storage on the client is required, you must use encryption to safeguard your data. It also secures access based on the credentials of the user.

To establish robust authorization schemes, you must verify the roles and rights of authenticated users only using information contained in backend systems.

Utilize multi-factor authentication to verify the identity of a user. You can use one-time passwords as well as security questions.

Poor Encryption

Encryption changes data into an encrypted format that can only be usable after it has been converted back to its original form using a secret decryption key. The attackers can easily access the information if the device and data are not properly encrypted.

What are the effects of inadequate encryption?

Simply put, insecure encryption could result in data loss and all the consequences of data loss.

What can you do to prevent poor encryption algorithms?

Be sure to implement the latest encryption algorithms regarded as secure by security experts. In addition, utilize the encryption APIs available on your mobile platform.

You should consider using layers of encryption to ensure that, even if an attacker has the key to decrypt one layer, there are still two layers of encryption to crack. Additionally, ensure that you protect encryption keys with a strong password. This is crucial.

The Final Words

It's impossible to fully understand all the risks to the security of mobile apps. However, with this information on the most frequent security threats to mobile apps, it is possible to protect your apps from the most serious security risks.

For more information on the security of mobile apps, contact us or our expert security team, who will be happy to assist you in building an app that is secure for mobile devices.