by Harshit Agarwal / July 29, 2024
Packed with sensitive data and accessible from anywhere, mobile apps are every hacker's dream.
But for security teams and app developers of businesses that use mobile apps for various functions, from powering their internal operations to driving customer engagement, it's a security nightmare. A compromised mobile app can have catastrophic consequences for them, from reputational damage to regulatory penalties.
They face the daunting challenge of protecting these mobile apps from cyber threats ranging from data breaches to financial loss. For them, mobile application security is a strategic imperative.
Mobile app security refers to a set of tools, policies, and best practices to protect mobile apps on various platforms, like Android and iOS, from external threats like malware, data thefts, and cyber attacks.
Security teams must implement robust mobile data security software to safeguard mobile devices. Developers must follow secure coding practices and use application security testing tools to identify and fix vulnerabilities during the development phase before they can cause significant business damage.
Read on to understand the importance of mobile app security, the common mobile app security threats, and the essential tools to protect mobile apps and maintain user trust.
The global mobile landscape is booming - with over 4.3 billion people using smartphones and a staggering 257 billion+ mobile app downloads in 2023 alone. This surging popularity, however, creates a security blindspot. While users enjoy the convenience of these apps, cybercriminals see an expanding target to attack.
In just 2023, the number of cyberattacks targeting mobile devices skyrocketed 52% to 33.8 million, according to Kaspersky.
With so much personal and business information flowing through mobile apps, robust security has become an absolute necessity for businesses that depend on them.
was the average cost of a data breach to an organization in 2023.
Weak mobile security can have a variety of long-term and short-term effects on businesses like:
The long-term effects are more consequential than the short-term. Once an attacker finds the vulnerabilities in your app security, they can leverage these vulnerabilities in various ways. For example, using ports for unauthorized communication, data theft, information sniffing, and man-in-the-middle attacks.
While it’s easier to overcome the repetitive and rare security failures, they hit your brand equity beyond recovery, and you may not have any chance of recovery.
If hackers gain access to customer information such as login data or account credentials, your business can face serious consequences, from customer churn to business loss.
Hackers can get control of credit or debit card numbers and tamper with bank transactions, especially when one-time password (OTP) authentication isn’t mandatory. If you’re a finance or banking company, such attacks can destroy your business.
The attackers can also exploit the vulnerabilities to access premium features without actually paying for them. Therefore, you must ensure mobile app security at all steps and protect your business data.
You can lose customer trust due to poor app security. Businesses suffer irreparable loss when their customers leave them because of a security incident, as they’re almost unlikely to return to them for business. This, in turn, affects their brand image and takes a heavy toll on brand confidence.
Many industries must comply with strict data protection regulations, like general data protection regulation (GDPR). Most app compliance certificates and regulatory documents also come with proper security guidelines and must-haves.
If your mobile app falls short of these compliances, or you lose your data or fall prey to an attack because of app vulnerabilities, you’re in for mammoth lawsuits that’ll dry up your business.
Before we look at how mobile app security works, let's examine common threats to mobile security and their impacts.
A mobile app is the easiest entry point for a threat attack. It's only sensible to learn more about the vulnerabilities common in mobile apps so that you're aware and take appropriate action to keep them safe.
Most mobile apps have a client-server architecture, with app stores like Google Play being the client. End-users interact with these clients to make purchases and view messages, alerts, and notifications.
The server component is on the developer side and interacts with the mobile device via an API through the internet. This server part is responsible for the correct execution of app functions.
Forty percent of the server components have a below-average security posture, and 35% have extremely dangerous vulnerabilities, including:
Unreliable data storage is one of the most significant app vulnerabilities, as it leads to data theft and severe financial challenges. Organizations often overlook mobile app security in the race of launching their apps.
This number gets scary when you consider critical apps, such as mobile banking, shopping, and trading, where you store confidential accounting details. Secure storage and data encryption facilitate data protection, but you must understand that not all encryption methods are equally effective or universally applicable.
While the mobile app exchanges data in the client-server architecture, the data traverses the carrier network of the mobile device and the internet. Threat agents can also exploit the vulnerabilities during this traversal and cause malware attacks, exposing the confidential information stored over the WiFi or local network.
This flaw exposes end users’ data, leading to account theft, site exposure, phishing, and man-in-the-middle attacks. Businesses can face privacy violation charges and incur fraud, identity theft, and reputational damage.
You can easily tackle this vulnerability with a trusted CA certificate provider, SSL/TLS security on the transport layer, and solid cipher suites.
Most of the vulnerabilities exist in the client, and a fair share are high-risk for mobile app security. These vulnerabilities are diverse and can lead to authentication problems and software infections.
Most apps authenticate users on the client side, which means that the data is stored on an unsafe smartphone. To verify the integrity of data sent over insecure channels, you can consider storing and authenticating app data on the server side and transmitting it as a hash value.
Malware is another common vulnerability in new mobile devices, making it critical to take quality protection measures right from the start.
While a lack of proper security measures for a mobile app is a vulnerability, improper configuration or implementation is also fatal to the app’s security posture. When you fail to implement all the security controls for the app or server, it becomes vulnerable to attackers and puts your business at risk.
The risk is magnified in the hybrid cloud environment, in which the entire organization is spread over different infrastructures. Loose firewall policies, app permissions, and failure to implement proper authentication and validation checks can cause huge ramifications.
Logs and audit trails give your company insight into all network activities and enable it to easily troubleshoot errors, identify incidents, and track events. They’re also helpful in complying with regulatory requirements.
Improper or inadequate logging and monitoring creates information gaps and hampers your ability to thwart and respond to a security incident.
Proper log management and audit trails minimize average data breach detection and containment time. They enable faster breach detection and mitigation measures and, in turn, save your time, reputation, and money.
Sensitive data exposure is another common vulnerability in mobile apps. It occurs when a mobile app, developer company, or similar stakeholder entity accidentally exposes personal data. Data exposure is different from a data breach, where an attacker accesses and steals user information.
Data exposure results from several factors. Some of these factors are inadequate data protection policies, missing data encryption, improper encryption, software flaws, or improper data handling.
Android and iOS make up most of the mobile devices we use today, so they’re a priority for securing the app infrastructure. Some of the well-known security risks for mobile apps in Android and iOS are discussed below.
Attackers use reverse engineering to understand how a mobile app works and formulate the exploits for an attack. They use automated tools to decrypt the application binary and rebuild the app source code, also known as code obfuscation.
Code obfuscation prevents humans and automated tools from understanding the inner workings of an app and is one of the best ways to mitigate reverse engineering.
Improper platform usage occurs when app developers misuse system functions, such as misusing certain application programming interfaces (APIs) or documented security guidelines.
As mentioned above, the mobile app platform is one of the most common threat points exploited by attackers. So, keeping it secure and using it properly should be one of your main concerns.
In addition to the new features, functionalities, and aesthetics, app updates comprise many security-related changes and updates for regular downloads to keep the apps up-to-date. However, most people never update their mobile apps, which leaves them vulnerable to security attacks.
Mobile app updates also remove the irrelevant features or code sequences no longer functional and possibly have a vulnerability that attackers can exploit. The low update frequency is a direct threat to app security.
Jailbreaking means the phone users can gain full access to the operating system (OS) root and manage all app functions. Rooting refers to removing restrictions on a mobile phone running the app.
Since most app users don’t have coding and OS management expertise, they can accidentally enable or disable a feature or functionality that the attackers could exploit. They may end up exposing their data or app credentials, which can be disastrous.
Mobile app security shields you from key threat actors and provides an additional layer of security for your mobile apps.
There are also three major threat points that attackers exploit:
Mobile app security is a holistic and integrated entity that protects all of these targets and threat points from attackers. All threat points are interconnected, and weakness in even one of them can stimulate exploitation. You should always know what to choose to secure your apps and devices.
Mobile app security is built upon three crucial elements.
Mobile application security testing involves testing your mobile app for security robustness and vulnerabilities, including testing the app as an attacker or hacker.
Performing a thorough mobile app security test ensures that you understand the app’s behavior and how it stores, transmits, and receives data. It also allows you to thoroughly analyze application code and review security issues in decompiled application code. All of this together helps identify threats and security vulnerabilities before they turn into risks.
App shielding refers to strategies and technologies that protect the app from tampering and reverse engineering, ensuring the code and data within the app are safeguarded against malicious attempts. Software that help with this includes:
Mobile data security software plays a crucial role in protecting sensitive data stored within mobile devices, including apps. This software ensures data in mobile phones is encrypted, managed, and transmitted securely, preventing unauthorized access.
Key features of mobile data security software include:
Using the software provides peace of mind to business users that their data is being securely managed and helps in complying with industry regulations and standards.
Always remember, security isn’t something that you can construct like a building and forget about later. You need to proactively and comprehensively monitor and assess the security policies and methods.
A robust, reliable, and self-remediating security posture results from consistent efforts and is gradually achieved as you deploy and understand the security measures over time. Implementing and managing these security measures across your business network is nothing short of a Herculean task.
So, be patient and develop your security strategy step by step.
Want some help with strategizing? Learn about zero-trust security strategy and how to implement it from an expert.
Harshit is CEO & Co-Founder at Appknox, a completely automated vulnerability assessment platform. He has 8 years of experience in working on technology and security. He has worked with Fortune 100 companies to set up end-to-end and continuous mobile application security processes.
