Top 5 Mobile App Security Risks That You Should Not Ignore

Mobile apps provide convenience to the modern customers by making their lives easier. You can get in touch with an efficient app development company who can help you in creating a unique app to enhance the reach of your brand. According to some of the recent studies, many of these applications are vulnerable to hacking attacks which make mobile app security a pressing issue which calls for a definite solution. But before finding the solution, it is essential to understand the potential risks that pose a threat to a mobile app’s security. Therefore, let's take a look at five of these risks.

1. Unsafe Storage Of Sensitive Data: Data is at the heart of any mobile application that is needed to be stored safely as it contains personal and financial details of the customers. With each passing day, all of the structured and unstructured data is increasing by leaps and bounds. With this, unsafe storage of the confidential data is a major security threat for the entrepreneurs that can't be ignored. Unsafe storage of details such as :

·         Passwords

·         Financial Credentials

·         Personal Details

·         Location Specific Data

·         Transaction Histories

·         Device Information etc.

One popular example of such a careless attitude was at the coffee giant Starbucks. Their executives admitted that they store all the usernames, email ids and passwords in clear text in their iOS Mobile Payment app. Thus, the data become vulnerable to get accessed and misused by hackers. However, later the concerned team fixed this security issue and launched an update to the app immediately.

In addition, enterprise data is much more vulnerable to security attacks as it contains valuable and confidential information. The vulnerability of such data increases because of different factors, such as unauthorized access, non-encrypted data storage, anti-viruses/anti-malware integrations, and inefficient EMM (Enterprise Mobility Management).

2. Harmful Injection Attacks: The malicious data can be injected using SQL injection techniques and code injection. These injections can be inserted both at the server side as well as the client side. These injections have a server technical impact if the mobile application is linked to multiple user accounts. Also, if its business impact includes loss of confidential information.

Injection majorly comprises of the following forms:

·         Code injection attack: Mobile applications that are based on HTML5 are more likely to have Cross Server Site Scripting(XSS) type attacks. These attacks are far more dangerous than any other attacks on web apps. In these type of attacks, hackers inject malicious JavaScript code into form fields.

 

·         SQL injection: There are high chances for the databases including SQLite to get injected by SQL queries causing risk to the apps that have a wide user base. These attacks are threat to the user identity and their data both.

 

·         Local file uploads: Sometimes mobile applications serve as a medium to upload unknown files to the server. Such situations can cause a risk to the server system and its existing data by corrupting the directory structure by storing unauthentic and malicious content.

Server might experience the following risks due to these harmful injections attacks:

·         Loss of user information

·         Loss of data

·         Server system failure

·         Corrupt database

3. Poor Authentication & Weak Authorization: Third party ad libraries can have access to the sensitive device details because of poor authentication. These APIs have unauthorized access to device information and GPS location. Also, you cannot ignore the fact that shared libraries inherit all the app permissions.

All the third party devices such as scripts, files, or apps having unauthorized access to the app can act as potential threats to your mobile app's security.

All these security threats happen because of less strict authorization and non-adherence to the norms of secure mobile app development.

4. Sensitive Data Leakage Through Wireless Transmission: There are high chances that mobile devices are susceptible to sensitive data leakage through wireless transmission. Most of the mobile apps transmit huge amounts of data over the network through HTTP requests or emails, wireless transmission or sockets. As a result of this, the servers are highly susceptible to security threats.

5. Fragile Cryptography: Most of the mobile apps' data is encrypted by the widely used but technically insufficient cryptographic algorithms such as SHA1 or MD5. These cryptographic algorithms do not perfectly align with modern security requirements and the hackers can easily decrypt such data.

One such instance happened with Skype. It used SQLite3 databases in order to store users' chat data and contact lists with one major bug in the form of not encrypted files. This issue was addressed at the right time otherwise it could lead to a potential mass leakage of private information across the web.

To conclude, in order to build highly-secure and risk-free mobile applications, you have to follow the best mobile app development practices. In case you need to build a secure mobile app to provide your users with an amazing experience, get in touch with a seasoned app development company who has an expert team that is aware of the security risks and is skilled enough to take effective measures to safeguard it.