The importance of mobile app security continues to rise with the popularity of mobile devices. Since these devices are rapidly growing into the primary method of communication, access, and exchange of information, it only makes sense that mobile app development for businesses has grown, too. When it comes to mobile app development for your company, one of the few things that you shouldn’t skimp on is its security. The cost to build a mobile app is irrelevant if your application is vulnerable and rendered inefficient due to breaches. Let’s review the best practices for mobile app security and how you can get started with implementation today.
Best Practice #1: Use Secure Coding Practices
One of the best ways to ensure your mobile application is secure is through the use of secure coding methods. In a nutshell, this means utilizing secure encryption and algorithms. Leveraging these tools will help keep the sensitive data housed within your app safe. Moreover, these methods of protection double as input validation and output sanitation. These forms of validation checks are useful for preventing any sort of injection attacks.
You should also keep up with secured communication protocols (HTTPS) to protect in-transit data. Your company’s team of developers should factor this into their mobile app development, and they should consider using secure, vetted frameworks and libraries.
Best Practice #2: Use Secure App Architecture
Any professional considering mobile app development for their businesses should consider using security features for their app’s architecture, such as sandboxing. This type of security architecture is integrated into mobile app development to isolate any sensitive data and stop unauthorized access. Your development team should also consider implementing role-based access controls that act as access restrictors for this sensitive data. This is another useful tool to protect against data breaches.
Best Practice #3: Keep Your App Up-to-Date
The cost to build a mobile app doesn’t stop with the creation of the mobile app, unfortunately. Investing in high quality mobile app security means keeping the app and its libraries/frameworks updates to the latest versions. Maintaining these components of the application and its architecture will help protect it from unwanted vulnerabilities. Don’t forget to check on any/all third-party libraries that are used within the app. These need to remain updated and secured, too.
Best Practice #4: Test Regularly for Better Mobile App Security
Keeping up with mobile app security translates to a lot of regularly scheduled security testing. These tests help assess the app for security issues and assess vulnerabilities. This can include dynamic, static, and penetration testing. Varying the method of tests your team runs against the app will help with a thorough vetting of the application and ensure it is well-protected against any security issues. Maintaining this style of varied testing will make it easier to resolve potentially costly and fatal issues for your app.
If your testing does uncover an issue within the application, your team should have a developed incident response plan to refer to for guidance and protocols. If you don’t yet have a system in place for handling security problems, establish one. Your team should be briefed and familiarized on what to do in case of a security situation to promote the most effective and efficient response times for security breaches.
Best Practice #5: Establish Authentication and Authorization Methods
These methods can range from anything as simple as maintaining strong, unique passwords for any logins to creating a multi-factor authentication for more sensitive data and actions. You should also consider putting these mechanisms in place for your data storage and transmission. OAuth works well for this. Using these authentication and authorization methods offers an added level of mobile app security that screens users prior to giving access to protected data or other sensitive information.
Best Practice #6: Always Protect User Information
The cost to build a mobile app is factored with its user in mind. They’re the reason the app exists, and as such, their privacy and information should be respected. That’s why it’s so important for developers to remain completely honest and transparent when it comes to what type of data their application is collecting and/or storing. Make sure that you provide clear, easily comprehensible privacy policies that outline exactly what users are committing to. Remember– this data is your users’ personal information, and they should be well aware of their rights and how exactly they may choose to exercise them.
Mobile app development teams should also take care not to collect any more data than is necessary. Once the data has been sufficiently utilized by the team, they should make sure that it remains protected and removed completely once it’s no longer needed.
Update Your Mobile App Security Today
Technology is ever evolving, and every day brings new software and opportunities for businesses. Unfortunately, this means that the threat against mobile app security is ever evolving. If you aren’t certain how to get started with updating your application’s security, don’t worry. Our 245TECH team is here to help! You can reach out to us at (865) 465-4040 for more information on how to get started.
