In the world of data breach and cyber security threats & attacks, it become crucial and top priority to take important measure to secure your mobile apps. Another aspect of considering security of apps is the increase in adoption of mobile device that continues to climb because of low cost phones and availability of internet. The use of dedicated apps is also increasing and is completely dominating mobile internet usage. Organization are also embracing mobile apps development to increase operation efficiency, productive of employee and to in line with the new era and wave of mobility lifestyles but the question is, are these apps download secure and protected from malicious hackers??

Security of mobile apps should be a prime importance for anyone releasing the apps on mobile market stores. In this article, we are going to list down some of the most important aspects of security that will help to curb these issues.

Securing your API’s

Application Programming Interface (API) is crucial for any system or application since it manages the backend development that enables to talk database. However, note since API’s our hosted on DMZ server (Internet facing), it is very crucial and at-most important to secure it over the network.

Following measure can help you secure your API’s

• Implement Token authentication. JWT (jSON web Token) is preferred for tokenization
• Implement 2-way authentication
• Use Https Protocol as channel for communication with the App & the server
• Use API gateways - API gateways act as the major point of enforcement for API traffic. A good gateway will allow you to authenticate traffic as well as control and analyze how your APIs are used

Install Anti-Virus Apps

Anti-Virus software is a key component in protecting your security of your mobile device. These programs scan the operating system of a mobile device, identify risks and removing them. They run seamlessly in the background on a pre-set schedule so mobile device users can rest assured that their devices are consistently protected.

Encrypt your Local Data Storage

Data encryption of the files on your phone is a good way to ensure mobile security in the event your phone falls into the hands of a thief and you’re not able to block it remotely.

What does data encryption do? Essentially it changes electronic data and information into unreadable state via algorithms or ciphers. For encrypting the local storage database, the use of the Ciphered Local Storage Plugin is recommended, especially when working with internet facing solutions.

Obfuscate your Code

Obfuscation of code means you are taking certain measure while developing your application that makes difficult or nearly impossible for hackers to perform reverse engineering and hack your code.

There are various obfuscation tools available in the market, such as Sirius, DashO and TotalCode. We also have ProGuard that is an open source command line tool that shrinks, optimizes and obfuscates Java code. It is able to optimize bytecode as well as detect and remove unused instructions

A recent approach is to inject anti-tamper protection into the source code. In the case of tampering, the application shuts down automatically or invokes random crashes. The developers or other concerned authorities can also receive details related to tampering.

Using these strategies ensure that the attackers cannot reverse engineer a software program.

Use Updated Libraries

One of the common elements prone to attacks is libraries. The risk is directly proportional to the length of your code. When working on your mobile application, use only the latest version of libraries with all available improvements and changes to avoid security breaches. This is applicable with proprietary code, open-source, or a combination of these two

Impose Access Policies

In order to reduce your app’s attack surface, make sure to use only secure libraries and frameworks. The app you are building should align with corporate policies applied by the organization’s IT administrators or by Google Play and Apple's App Store.

Testing the Mobile Application

It is very obvious and know fact that developer generally don’t test the app to the level expected and this job is best done by dedicated QA tester who ensure functionality and quality is maintained.

In order to have secure app, your QA team should review the code regularly and identify security loopholes that might result in data breach.

Conclusion

By implementing the above-mentioned mobile app security measures, they will be able to safeguard both the apps and the data within. App makers and developers need to take a comprehensive approach toward developing apps and should consider all the factors that affect app security.

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