7+ Top Best Practices For Securing Mobile Apps in 2024

Securing mobile apps has become a serious concern for businesses! Wondering why and how?

In this world driven by technology and computers, ensuring the security of your app isn’t just an optional feature, infact, its an mandatory for businesses.

A single breach could not only result in massive financial losses for your company, but it could also shaken the trust that has been built over a lifetime. This is why prioritizing security right from the moment you start coding is crucial.

Let’s check out the quick tips to secure mobile apps…

It has been observed that businesses usually put their entire focuse on creating the most user-friendly, innovative, and captivating apps, and overlook the cyber breaches which ultimately put their app at the big risk. 

If you take a moment to think about the relationship we have with our smartphones and mobile apps today, you’ll realize that a significant portion of our most important personal information is out there in the digital world, easily available to various cybercriminals.

A single unauthorized entry could expose details like our name, age, home address, account numbers, and even our precise current location to within a few meters. Enterprise-level apps deal with highly confidential data that hackers are constantly seeking to exploit. With such critical information hanging in the balance, mobile app developers have a vital responsibility to take all necessary measures to safeguard their users and clients.

Why Securing Mobile Apps Has Become Neccessity For Business?

Today, with jaw-dropping advancements in technology, now people have an app for everything. Two decades back have you ever thought about having an app that can order your groceries with a voice command? 

People can do virtual shopping by leveraging personalised recommendations. 

They can travel all across the world by sitting at home by using the richness of VR technology. 

Google’s Alexa can listen to your command and smartly operate your appliances.

Users can make transactions anywhere, anytime by using banking apps.

There is much more that people can do with mobile devices and applications. And businesses from all over the world have realised the exceptional growth of the mobile app economy. Therefore, they are embracing various technologies to build an app. 

Even businesses that haven’t had any digital presence in past are strongly paving their way into this domain. Today, having a business mobile app has become a mandatory requirement if you want to stay ahead of the competition.

However, to make these apps work flawlessly, it requires personal user data. Convincing users to enter their personal details or information into the app is a big task. You have to provide a platform that can be easily trusted. And that’s where mobile app security becomes a pressing issue for businesses. 

If you are still taking security for mobile applications as a casual topic then you should look at the market share of mobile apps. 

Market Statistics of Mobile Applications

• According to the Statista Reports, mobile apps are predicted to generate revenue of $613 billion by 2025. 

• According to Survey reports, around 6.3 billion smartphone users will increase to 7.49 billion by 2025.

• Americans spend 92.5% of their mobile time on applications and checking their phones approximately 265 times daily.

• The market survey report reveals that 53.96% of web traffic comes from mobile phones.

In a nutshell, with these statistics, it is clear that the usage of mobile applications will be surging over the next few years. While the use of mobile apps is increasing, it becomes necessary to hire mobile app developers in India to ensure mobile app security.

But the central question is What is mobile app security, how to secure an apps and what are the best secure mobile app securities?

Let’s get started step by step…

What is Mobile App Security?

Nowadays, more people rely heavily on mobile apps for their digital tasks compared to traditional desktop applications. In the United States back in 2015, mobile devices accounted for 54% of digital media usage, with users actively engaged in various mobile apps. These apps gather significant user data, a lot of which is sensitive and requires safeguarding against unauthorized access.

Major mobile platforms offer security controls to help developers create secure applications. However, developers often have to navigate through a variety of security options, and without proper evaluation, the implemented security features might be easily exploited by attackers.

Mobile apps commonly encounter these issues:

• Handling Sensitive Data: Sometimes, sensitive information is stored or unintentionally exposed in a manner that other apps on the user’s phone can access.

• Authentication and Authorization Weaknesses: Poorly designed authentication and authorization systems can be bypassed by malicious apps or users.

• Weak Data Encryption: Some apps use encryption methods that are known to be vulnerable or easily breakable.

• Unencrypted Data Transmission: Transmitting sensitive data over the internet without proper encryption puts it at risk.

These vulnerabilities can be exploited in various ways. For instance, malicious apps on a user’s device or attackers who have access to the same WiFi network as the user could take advantage of these weaknesses.

Read more: Best application security testing tools, values and benefits.

Before you get straight into the process of hiring app developers in India, let’s dive into the tops for securing mobile apps in 2024.

8 Best Practices for Securing Mobile Apps In 2024

It goes without saying that the mobile app space has exploded in recent years with hundreds of thousands of new apps being released every month across all platforms, including iOS and Android. 

These apps can range from great to terrible in terms of functionality, design and overall user experience (UX), so there’s no doubt that you need to know what you’re getting into when you download an app and put your information into it.

No matter whether you are about to launch an app or it has been already used by thousands of users, you need to adopt best practices for securing mobile apps.

After evaluating the developer’s concerns and common securing issues, here we have listed top practices for securing mobile apps.

Tip for Securing Mobile Apps #1 Ensure To Have a Secure Mobile App Coding

Securing mobile apps become simpler if you know what to address and when.

It is most common for attackers to exploit bugs or vulnerabilities in code in order to break into an application. All they need is a public copy of your app to reverse engineer it and tamper with it.

It has been estimated that over 11.6 million mobile devices are being affected by malicious code at any given time, according to market research.

Make your code difficult to hack by hardening it, obscuring and minifying it to prevent reverse engineering. Your code should be easy to update and patch. Test repeatedly and fix bugs as soon as they arise.

Pro Tip For Mobile App Security

• Code hardening and code signing can be used to keep your code agile after a breach. 

• Ensure the signature on your application matches the signature on its corresponding certificate- do not sign with certificates from other applications. 

• Apps may also be signed using dual signatures which allows you to create two separate signatures: one for development purposes and one for production purposes. 

• Frequent updates will also reduce risks associated with compromised apps because new features, bug fixes and security patches are always included in these updates. 

• However, try to avoid updating too frequently as this could disrupt features people have grown accustomed to or require additional testing before deployment. 

• It is also important that you regularly review the capabilities of third-party libraries you use in order to make sure they haven’t been hacked or infected by malware.

To implement these tips, you can consider hiring software developers in India and make sure that your app code is bug-free.

Image Source: nix-united

Security for Mobile Applications Tip 2# Use Protected Servers

Protecting your servers is a big step in any security protocol. There are many ways you can do this, but the most basic way is with firewalls. This will keep people from breaking in and potentially hijacking your servers. 

Moreover, information is shared with the server through the app should use a HTTPS connection, which prevents hacking or anyone who owns a network that isn’t secure from altering any HTTP traffic to take advantage of the user.

Additionally, you want to make sure that you don’t leave any holes for hackers by not leaving ports open that shouldn’t be. So here are a few practical ways of securing mobile apps:

• Update your servers with the latest software. 
• Patch your system regularly. 
• Install antivirus software on your server. 
• Limit the number of people who can access your server. 
• Add a second layer of security when logging in remotely by using a different password. 
• Encrypt all data that is stored on your server by using 256-bit encryption. 
• Make sure all files are backed up at least once per week, or more often if necessary. 
• Do not store any sensitive data on mobile devices, especially if they are not encrypted or password protected. 
• Ensure that your passwords are complex enough so that they cannot be guessed easily.  Perform routine checks for malware, viruses, trojans and other malicious software every week.

 
In a nutshell, securing mobile apps is no more a challenging task for you if these tips are carefully followed. 

Read more: Cost and tips to hire Android app developers in India.

Securing Mobile Apps Tip 3# Using Modern Encryption Methods

The modern way of encrypting data is through the use of public-key cryptography. Public-key cryptography uses two keys: a public key, which can be shared with everyone, and a private key, which must be kept secret by the owner. 

If you want to send someone a message that only they can read, you encrypt the message using their public key. 

The person will decrypt it using their private key. If the sender shares his public key with all of his friends, then any friend can send him messages that only he can read. Public-key encryption protects messages from being tampered with or eavesdropped on. 

It also guarantees that a message really came from who it claims to have come from and has not been modified along the way (eavesdropping). 

In this scenario, even if an attacker intercepts the encrypted messages while they are being transmitted between two parties on an insecure channel such as email or SMS texting, all they would get is gibberish without knowing how to decrypt them.

Securing Mobile Apps With Tip 4# Using Strong Authentication System

With some of the biggest security breaches occurring due to weak authentication, stronger authentication is becoming increasingly important. By definition, authentication involves passwords and other identifiers that act as barriers to entry. 

For Android Apps, you can hire mobile app developers in India to create an authentication system specific to their app interface. 

They can create a strong system that can encourage your users to be more sensitive towards authentication, but a large part of this depends on the end users of your application. 

If you want your apps to accept only strong alphanumeric passwords, you can require them to be renewed every three or six months. For overly sensitive apps, biometric authentication, such as retina scans and fingerprints, can also be used. Increasingly, multi-factor authentication combines static passwords with dynamic OTPs.

Image Source: koombea

Mobile App Security Tip 5# Using Only Authorized Third-Party Libraries

Increase the security of mobile applications by simply implementing the authenticated third-party libraries!

If you are using any third-party libraries for your mobile app, make sure to use only authorized third parties. If you need a library that does not seem legitimate, do more research on the company or contact the developer before downloading.

Do not download any files from unknown sources, even if they are coming from the library’s website. Be aware of what permissions your apps are requesting when installing them. It is important that you only grant access to the features you actually need in order to protect your data and avoid malware risk. 

When it comes time for upgrades, make sure that you keep up with them as soon as they become available. If an update includes a new security feature, install it as soon as possible since it may have already been compromised by hackers who discovered it before you did.

Tip For Securing Mobile Applications 6# Testing and Monitoring Mobile App Repeatedly

When developing a mobile app, it’s important to test your app before releasing it. The first time you release your app, it should be a beta version where you invite people who are interested in the app to use it and provide feedback. 

After that initial release, start monitoring analytics on what users are doing within the app. As new features are added or bugs arise, monitor analytics again and make changes as necessary. If there are no improvements to the user experience after changing something, add something else. 

An ongoing process of testing and refining will help ensure success for your business. 

It is also important for app developers to take steps for data security such as encryption and backing up data offline so that if an application is compromised, data can still be retrieved. 

With all these tips in mind, developers can have peace of mind knowing they have done everything they could do to create an application with the best security measures possible. 

Mobile App Security Tip 7# Securing App Backend

A significant number of mobile applications use a client-server architecture, making security measures a necessity to protect against malicious attacks on backend servers.

Developers assume only apps that are programmed to access APIs can access them. In spite of this, you should always verify APIs according to the mobile platform you intend to code for, since API authentication and transport mechanisms differ from one platform to the next.

Tip For Securing Mobile Apps 8#  Using Authorized APIs Only

When API access is not authorized and loosely coded, hackers can access important information unintentionally. When programmers cache authorization information locally, they can reuse that information when making API requests.

 In addition, it facilitates the use of APIs by coders. However, it also gives attackers a loophole to gain privileges. APIs should be authorized centrally for maximum security, according to experts.

Conclusion

No one wants to think about their data being compromised. And yet, it’s happening all the time. This is why it’s important for you to take precautions such as using strong passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and only downloading apps from trusted sources. 

Take the steps necessary now before it’s too late! If you are still in a dilemma that where to get started and what exactly is lacking in your mobile app then AppsDevPro can be your ultimate place to hire software developers in India.

We have a team of experts to analyse your mobile app and assist you with best practices for securing mobile apps. To know more about services and cost estimations, you can contact us or drop your query below.

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