Slack, Klarna, ParkMobile, and Amazon Ring. What do these mobile apps have in common? In 2021, all these apps had significant data breaches.
A recent report estimated that 6.6 billion people use smartphones, equaling roughly 83% of the earth’s population. With the ever-increasing popularity of mobile phones, mobile app security is an important topic, especially with the rise of cyber-attacks and the ever-growing number of mobile devices in the world.
This article will explore why mobile app security is essential, and some basic steps to ensure your app has a high level of protection to protect your customers’ data.
The Importance of App Security
The first question that needs to be answered is what are the consequences of not maintaining mobile app security?
For your company
If a company’s data gets hacked, it could lose its customers and reputation, go out of business, or get sued.
The effects of data breaches can be both short-term and long-term, depending on the severity of the leak. Short-term effects include lost revenue, customer turnover, and brand damage.
Long-term effects include increased security costs, lawsuits, and fines from regulatory agencies such as the FTC or GDPR. For example, if a company suffers a data breach, it could be fined up to $1 million per violation by the Federal Trade Commission.
Additionally, if the company does not take steps to mitigate the data breach and fix its security vulnerabilities, they are more likely to suffer from future breaches.
For users
These consequences for your company don’t even touch the ethical responsibility an app developer has to their customers. Unfortunately, most people don’t realize how much personal information they give away when they sign up for an app, assuming that it will be safe in the hands of the app developers.
However, even big-name apps have failed to live up to that trust. For example, the Amazon Ring Neighbor App breach revealed the exact home addresses of the people posting on the app. Additionally, security researchers found that some popular android apps had security vulnerabilities that allowed attackers to access emails, chat messages, passwords, and photos.
Asking for data, promising its safety, and failing to follow through with that promise can compromise your customers’ safety, health, and wallets.
Three Types of Data Breaches
A data breach is a security incident in which sensitive or confidential information is unintentionally released to an unauthorized person or made available for use by an unintended audience.
This data can be anything the customer has entered in the app or a security loophole that allows unauthorized access to other phone parts.
There are three main types of data breaches:
- Malicious: Malicious breaches are when a hacker steals data through malware and phishing schemes
- Accidental: Accidental breaches happen on the user’s end and generally occur because of weak passwords or someone else accessing their account
- Negligent: Negligent breaches are those that occur when companies do not put the proper safeguards in place to protect customer data
Mobile apps are particularly vulnerable to malicious breaches. Unless an app is only released on one OS, there are more chances for things to slip through the cracks and more openings for hackers to exploit. On top of that, apps are usually connected to the internet, which means they are at risk through unsecured connections.
Accidental or physical breaches can happen if someone loses their phone or doesn’t use a unique password. Because phones are very easily lost or stolen, this is another thing that app developers need to be aware of.
Negligent breaches are very much the responsibility of an app developer. But unfortunately, some try to cut corners by using shoddy security techniques or rushing the programmers to get something out before it’s safe to use.
Third-party breaches
A third-party breach isn’t necessarily a unique type of data breach since it’s simply another company with access to your app’s data experiencing one of the three types. However, it’s something that app developers need to keep in mind.
Whenever you give access to your data to another company, you risk having your own security compromised, even if your app is airtight.
How To Mitigate Risk of Data Leakage
There are many ways that companies can reduce the risk of data breaches in their mobile app that address the three types of data breaches. The following tips will help you mitigate the risk of a data breach for your mobile app.
To stop hackers, you should:
- Use SSL encryption on your app and encrypt all the data you store on your servers.
- Keep an eye on who has access to your app’s private keys and make sure they have strict security clearance.
- Use 2FA authentication when possible.
- Encrypt all communication between devices and servers using TLS or similar protocols
To help security on the user’s side, you can employ some protective measures.
First, you should require that users’ passwords are long and complex enough so that hackers can’t brute force their way in.
Two-factor authentication can help protect your users if their device is stolen. It is a security measure that requires two sources of identification to verify someone’s identity. It is often used to log into an account or withdraw money from a bank account.
As for breaches of negligence, the best thing to do is always ensure that your app is current. Update your app to keep pace with security changes and known threats to ensure that you are always on top of any vulnerabilities or patches that need to be applied. And never rush a release or update until you’ve run all the tests and made sure you haven’t left any data vulnerable.
Conclusion
We really cannot understate the importance of mobile app security. It is essential for the future of your business and the safety of your customers. If you take proper precautions, you can keep yourself from being the next cautionary tale.
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