Mobile App Security: Best Practices that can Keep Your App Data Safer

Modern mobile apps are keepers of a massive amount of user, security, finance, healthcare, and other such types of data that are keeping the digital world alive. As a result, apps are often targeted by cybercriminals who want to steal this data and use it to fulfill their purposes.

An AAG IT report states, in 2021, 1 in 2 Americans suffered cyberattacks like account breaching and in 2022, approximately 39% of UK-based businesses suffered a cyber attack.

So, if you are planning to build a mobile app that follows the best security standards, we are discussing a few practices that can help you ensure that your app offers a safe and secure user experience.

Without further ado, let’s have a look at these app security practices!

1. Encrypted data storage

It is common for smartphones to get missing or stolen. Even if that happens, apps should be built in a way so that a stranger accessing the smartphone can not access the app data stored in it. Encryption of the app data and locking data access with passwords, fingerprints, face scanners, or other such authentic methods can ensure that.

It is also important to ensure that the location where data is stored or the format it is stored in, is not readable until the data is accessed via the app itself. These security measures should be applied to all types of app data whether it is users’ personal information or the cached data of the app.

2. Multiple layers of authentication

Plenty of modern applications are applying multiple layers of security and authentication including two-factor authentication, password-based authentication, Captcha authentication, One-time Password (OTP) authentication, etc.

These layers ensure that even if one piece of information is somehow leaked to data thieves, the other pieces of authentication can still keep the data safer. Such strong app security standards are often found in payment and banking apps.

3. NDAs and data security contracts

If you are outsourcing the app development process to third-party software development companies in the USA, India, or to some other country, you should first go through its data security standards and get NDAs signed up so your app remains safer.

NDAs can save you from any unauthorized parties accessing your app’s backend even in the organization that you have hired to work on your app.

4. Regular app security testing

To keep your mobile app safer for a long period of time, testing if every now and then should be a part of your app strategy. Regular app security testing should focus on vulnerability scanning, hardware health check, software health check, versions of security certifications, the health of security codes, etc. Keeping an eye on the security standards of the app and regularly scanning it can save your app from avoidable losses.

5. Code obfuscation and app hardening

Now we are discussing making reverse engineering harder for cyber attackers. There are several steps that you can take to make it hard for app developers to reverse engineer apps. The code obfuscation techniques refer to making it hard for machines or humans to read and decrypt a code. Only the team or the individual that has built the app.

6. Using artificial intelligence to secure your app

AI has become more portable now and it is easier to deploy the technology on app servers. AI can work like a security guard for your app that keeps on possible vulnerabilities to ensure the app remains safer. It can regularly scan the hardware and software health to look for any exposé of the vulnerabilities that might have developed with time.

Once found, AI can raise alerts, block accesses, and take such measures automatically to stop cyberattacks on time. The best thing about such automation is that with time, as more cyberattack data is generated around the world, you can upgrade these systems and improve their standards of keeping your apps safe.

7. Using trusted APIs

Application Programming Interface (APIs) are often used by developers to make apps feature-rich and visually appealing. However, as APIs are able to access the app data and infiltrate servers, it can be a vulnerability that cyber criminals might leverage to enter your app. So, while picking APIs, it is crucial to make sure that you are only using APIs from trusted sources and that these APIs are well-secured to keep your apps safer.

Wrapping up

Well, building safer apps is not hard but it is also a truth that the app development industry is dynamic. With time, whatever security standards you have used in building apps might go out of fashion due to the invention of new and more advanced cyberattacks.

So, it is crucial that you keep updating your app's security measures so that with developing cyberattacks, these apps can remain safer. Hopefully, the above-mentioned security practices will make it easier for you to build safer apps.