Everything that we can think of from messaging to banking to controlling IoT devices is possible with mobile app trends. In other words, it’s hard to imagine life without mobile apps. Every day, we use a variety of apps for completing different tasks. For example, if we need to eat out in a new restaurant, we open popular food apps such as Chope or Eatigo and go through their listings. Similarly, when we need to visit a new place inside Singapore, we use Google Maps for directions.

As mobile apps are important, hackers try to disrupt our lives with attacks and malware. It’s important that you consider, amongst other tips for mobile app development, the need to safeguard the data of your mobile app as it has access to the sensitive information. If you want to improve the security of your mobile app, here are a few tips to help you out. Ensuring security for your mobile app may not be cheap, but it is important to consider it.
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App wrapping

One of the best ways to improve the security of your mobile app is to implement app wrapping. With this technique, you can employ the best security policies on your mobile app without having to change the functionality or aesthetics. As a result of this, your mobile app should have an extra layer of security as it has a separate environment, protecting it from the hackers and malware. When you use app wrapping, your users can download your mobile app according to your security policies. App wrapping also gives you the ability to wipe the data or lock the smartphone of your user, in case he/she loses their device.

Avoid using extra app permissions

When the users install your mobile app on their smartphones, they need to grant it permissions. With permissions, your mobile app can use specific data such as location, contacts, internal storage, hardware information, and more. When you are developing your mobile app, make sure that it uses minimal permissions from the user. When you have access to larger volumes of user data, it becomes challenging to keep them safe from the hands of hackers and malware.

Rather than putting yourself in this situation, the best development practice is to use as little permissions as possible. On top of that, if you ask for extra permissions, your users may not trust your app. As a result of this, the number of downloads will go down significantly.

Encrypt all data

To ensure that your mobile app has high-level security, you need to use encryption. Right from day one, you should focus on the security of your mobile app. As it is a native app, your users will install it on their smartphones. However, the problem with native apps is that it is more vulnerable to malware. By encrypting the code of your mobile application, you are making life harder for the hackers.

You can use API encryption, up-to-date algorithms, minification, and obfuscation to safeguard your mobile app. At the same time, also make sure that you can push updates to the code. In case there has been a security breach, it becomes easier to patch and update your mobile app. However, ensure that this extra layer of security has minimal impact on the performance of your mobile app.

Restrict sideloading

Although sideloading allows your users to update your mobile app before it hits the Google Play Store, it can be dangerous. Most of the time, users visit alternative websites to get access to a variety of mobile apps. As these apps don’t need to go through the security checks of the Play Store, hackers can insert malware into their codes. In such situations, even though the app looks legitimate, hackers can siphon data from users without their knowledge. You can completely avoid this situation by disallowing or restricting sideloading of your mobile app. After all, you don’t want to be the one who takes the blame because your user got an infected version of your mobile app from a random website.

Use authentication and passwords

Another way to improve the security of your mobile app is to use authentication and passwords. With the help of authentication, it becomes harder for hackers to go through the data of your users. One way to utilize authentication is to implement OAuth2 framework in your server. OAuth2 allows you to control the permissions between the user and client. There are also other authentication frameworks such as OpenID Connect and JSON web tokens.

Last but not the least, make passwords compulsory so that hackers have a difficult time gaining access to your mobile app. The passwords should have a mixture of special characters, numbers, and uppercase and lowercase letters. If you don’t want to use passwords, you can also use fingerprints to do the same job.

Use these tips to improve the security of your mobile app. If you want to get the best mobile app security, why don’t you contact Robust Tech House for help?

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