Managing risks of mobile application

Consumers often download apps on blind faith and are consequently particularly vulnerable. And, to be honest, so are business users. Individual users, and companies, pay a high price for this trust. Below I have listed top 10 risks while developing a mobile application:

1. Weak Server Side Controls:

             Any communication that happens between the app and the user outside the mobile phones happens through a server. Thus, this becomes a primary target that gets exploited by the hackers. The easiest and most important step to secure your mobile apps from server side vulnerabilities is to scan them. Yes, that's it, you need to scan your apps using an automated scanner. An automated scanner brings out common issues that can be solved with little effort. It is important to do this because these scanners can also be used by hackers to find out exploits they can use to easily hack your application. If you want advanced security than you can also hire cyber experts to guide you through the process.

2. Lack of Binary Protections:

             In the absence of binary protection, an adversary can reverse engineer the code of app to inject a malware or redistribute the pirated application possibly with a threat. It a critical concern in mobile apps security as it can result in confidential data theft, brand and trust damage, frauds, revenue losses etc. To avoid this, it important to use binary hardening techniques.

3. Insecure Data Storage:

             Another common mobile apps security loophole is the lack of secure data storage. The best way to secure your data storage across platforms is to build an additional layer of encryption over the base level encryption provided by the OS. This gives a massive boost to mobile apps security and reduces your dependence on the default encryption.

4. Insufficient Transport Layer Protection:

             Transport layer refers to the route through which the data is transferred from client to the server and vice versa. In the case of an insufficient transport layer a hacker can gain access to the data and modify or steal it on his will. This results in frauds, identity threats etc. A common practice is to use SSL and TLS to encrypt the communication.

5. Unintended Data Leakage:

             Unintended data leakage refers to the storage of critical app data on insecure locations on the mobile. The data is stored in a location on the device that is easily accessible by other apps or the users. This results in the breach of user privacy leading to the unauthorized use of data. You can prevent unintended data leakages by monitoring common leakage points like caching, logging, application backgrounding, HTML 5 data storage and browser cookie objects.

6. Poor Authorization and Authentication:

             Poor or missing authentication allows an adversary to anonymously operate the mobile app or backend server of the mobile app. This is prevalent due to a mobile device’s input form factor. The form factor encourages short passwords that are usually based on 4-digit PINs.

7. Broken Cryptography:

             Broken cryptography is a common mobile apps security issue that arises due to bad encryption or incorrect implementation. By exploiting the vulnerabilities an adversary can decrypt the sensitive data to its original form and manipulate or steal it as per his/her convenience. Hackers can also be benefited from poor key management like storage of keys in easily accessible locations or avoiding hard coding of keys within the binary.

8. Client Side Injection:

             Client side injection refers to the execution of malicious code on the client side via the mobile app. Typically, a threat agent inputs the malicious code into the mobile app through several different means. The code may either run within the scope and access permissions of the user or it can also execute with privileged permissions leading to much greater potential damage.

The best way to prevent application vulnerabilities to injection is to identify the sources of input and ensure that user/application supplied data is being subject to input validation.

9. Security Decisions via Untrusted Inputs:

         Developers generally use hidden fields, values or functionality to distinguish between higher and lower level users. An attacker might intercept the calls and mess with such sensitive parameters. Weak implementation of such hidden functionalities leads to improper app behaviour resulting in higher level permissions being granted to an attacker. The technique used to exploit these vulnerabilities is called hooking.

10. Improper Session Handling:

       Improper session handling refers to the continuance of the previous session for a long period even when the user has switched from the application. Many e-commerce companies tend to enable longer sessions to speed up the buying process and business does so to provide a better user experience by optimizing the speed but is dangerous.