Smartphones and mobile applications have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. We can use mobile apps to do banking, check emails, play games, book flights, socialize and buy groceries. Now, mobile apps have made significant strides into the banking and financial sectors, where confidential information is exchanged.
Mobile app development has become a target for hackers looking to obtain personal information and files illegally. This is exceedingly risky for marketplaces, banks, insurance firms, and even the individual user.
The security of your mobile app is critical for both your company’s reputation and the safety of your users. Failure to do so could result in user data being stolen or misused. It’s entirely conceivable to compromise all of your development resources, and, possibly much worse, to harm your company’s reputation.
According to the Check Point Cyber Security Report for 2021, 46% of businesses have had at least one employee download a mobile application with serious security concerns.
In consideration of this, we’ve decided to look at some of the most frequent mobile app security threats, as well as secure recommended practices to follow while developing your mobile app.
1. Data Storage in Offline Apps
There are four major types of applications to develop: native apps, online applications, hybrids (which combine the two), and progressive web applications (which are newer) (PWA). Most mobile apps, particularly progressive and native apps, may be used offline. There are numerous applications for mobile apps that permit this, such as allowing users to work offline and then rejoin at a later stage to save or transmit files.
The issue for a developer is that they must give everything necessary for the app to perform without a constant internet connection. In a client-server design, the user initiates requests in the app, which are sent to the server, which processes the data and delivers an output to the user. Offline apps must accomplish everything within the app, which might be one of the major drawbacks and risks in mobile apps. It means that hackers have access to the entire codebase, rather than only the most security-critical code (such as authentication and authorization), which is kept on the server.
The same solutions apply to both online and offline apps, although offline functionality is significantly more crucial. The app’s data storage is a common source of problems. For example, if a user of an app does not have a password on their phone and loses it, an attacker can gain access to the database. There may be some built-in authentication, but if the data is not saved appropriately, there may be alternative options. It’s critical to correctly store credentials and other confidential data in an encrypted database.
2. Inadequate and Non-Secure Communication
Encrypting communication between the app and the server is a common best practice for mobile app security. This establishes a secure channel, ensuring that no data is tampered with or intercepted while in transit. One of the most common vulnerabilities and threats in mobile applications is caused by a developer ignoring an aspect of data communication that they consider unimportant and failing to encrypt it. Then, in retrospect, it turns out that it was essential after all.
To guarantee that encryption cannot be damaged, all information communicated between app and server should be encrypted using proper algorithms and strong cyphers. Implementing industry-standard controls – often stipulated by the tools and systems noted in point one above – is the solution. One example is not relying solely on symmetric cryptography with hardcoded keys as the only encryption method.
These technical standards are constantly changing and keeping up with them is no easy task. This is one of the primary reasons for working with a specialized software company like ours.
3. Substandard Quality Code
Quality code is always composed of security features. Poor-quality code is more likely to provide an ideal environment for vulnerabilities to be misused. In other words, the lower the code quality, the more potential vulnerabilities there are, and the easier it is for an attacker to connect parts of the app they shouldn’t be able to. Making sure the app is properly signed with a valid security certificate and releasing the app in release mode rather than debug mode are two examples of common risks and solutions for mobile app security in terms of code quality.
Consistently use secure coding practices that do not result in vulnerable code. When using buffers, ensure that the length of the incoming buffer data is not greater than the length of the target buffer.
Using third-party static analysis tools, automate the detection of memory leaks and buffer overflows. Also, prioritize resolving memory leaks and buffer overflows over other code quality issues because they tend to cause more mobile security risks and can be easily corrupted. To evaluate your code and detect these security threats and vulnerabilities, use a security firm that specializes in static analysis.
4. Reverse Engineering
The danger of reverse engineering – and how to protect against it – is another significant mobile security concern and recommended practice to explore here. Reverse engineering can be used to determine how the app functions on the back end, modify the source code, expose encryption algorithms in place, and more. The user controls a significant portion of the codebase in mobile apps. Attackers will dissect the code with specific tools (such as IDA Pro) to figure out how it works and exploit some of the features.
For example, authentication systems are simply a method for an app to ask the user, “Are you who you say you are?” If the user does not provide the required credentials, the authentication fails. However, if an attacker can reverse engineer an app, they can circumvent this, enabling them to say, “yes I am” and activate that section of the mobile app. As a result, reverse engineering is one of the most serious threats to mobile app security.
There are several approaches to address this. One method is to use obfuscation techniques on publicly available code to make deciphering impossible for attackers. Many others are dependent on the platform used to develop the app because the tools used to reverse engineer a vulnerable app are part of that ecosystem. Also, limiting client-side capabilities and exposing more functionality through web services server-side is an effective approach to protect mobile apps from being reverse-engineered. Once the functionality has been reduced to the bare minimum, commercial obfuscators are used to obfuscate the codebase.
Avoid keeping API keys in shared resource folders, assets, or anyplace else where an outsider could easily access them. To protect your mobile app’s API key, use either public/private key exchange or NDK.
5. Inadequate Encryption
Encryption is the process of turning data into an encrypted form that can only be decrypted if a secret decryption key is used. If devices and data are not properly encrypted, attackers will have much easier access to the information.
What are the consequences of insufficient encryption? Simply, poor encryption can result in data loss, as well as all of the consequences that come with it.
When it comes to encryption, where do programmers make mistakes? Even the finest encryption techniques can fail if the keys aren’t handled properly. For example, storing the keys in insecure databases or files that other users can view.
One of the most typical errors we see is this. Attackers don’t try to breach the encryption technique since that would be too difficult; instead, they go after the keys. Insecure key management is, however, a major problem. Another method in which mobile developers mishandle encryption is by developing and implementing bespoke encryption algorithms or protocols. These encryption techniques are frequently insecure in comparison to other current algorithms available in the security field. Using weak or insecure encryption methods like RC2, MD5, MD4, and SHA1 can also expose you to attacks.
Make sure you’re using up-to-date encryption techniques that the security industry considers being robust. Make use of your mobile platform’s encryption APIs. Consider layering encryption such that even if an attacker obtains the decryption key to decrypt one layer, they still have two more layers to breach. Also, make sure you store encryption keys securely. This is critical.
6. Poor Authorization and Authentication
Attackers can perform features within the mobile app, or the backend server used by the app discreetly if authentication mechanisms are missing or are poor. Mobile app authentication requirements differ from those of regular web apps in that users are not required to be online at all times during their sessions. It’s feasible that mobile apps will demand offline authentication due to uptime requirements. This way of verifying a user’s identity offline can pose security problems, which developers should consider when designing authentication schemes.
In the same way, depending on the severity of the high privileges violated to attack a mobile user, improper authorisation might have an impact on the security of a mobile app. For example, if an attacker has access to high-privilege actions, such as those performed by administrators, data theft, manipulation, or complete compromise of backend services could occur.
There are numerous approaches to improving mobile security by implementing correct authentication and authorization:
Ascertain that authentication requests are handled by the server. The data should be loaded into the mobile device after successful authentication. This ensures that data is loaded only once authentication is successful.
- Use encryption to protect your data and safely derive from the user’s credentials if client-side data storage is required.
- Verify the roles and permissions of authorized users using only data from backend systems to develop strong authorization mechanisms.
- To verify a user’s identity, employ multi-factor authentication. One-time passwords, security questions, and more methods are available.
7. CONCLUSION
You can protect your mobile apps from the largest security threats by using the above information about the most prevalent mobile app security problems. Not just for top mobile app development companies, but also users, preventing cybercrime and ensuring data security throughout the app development process for iOS and Android is critical.
Are you unsure where to begin when it comes to mobile app security best practices? Please Contact Us to discuss your requirements.
At TechDel, we comply with all of the aforementioned mobile app security best practices, as well as industry-standard security requirements for building secure code. Check our TechDel Mobile App Services page if you need a secure mobile app for your company. See our application security testing services page for a further sense of security and the finest in application security.
