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App security has become increasingly important. Whether your app is designed for businesses or personal use, security is incredibly important. What makes it particularly difficult is that security is always evolving. With more people working remotely, securing apps has become even more important, and is definitely affecting the trends of 2021.
App security has become increasingly important. Whether your app is designed for businesses or personal use, security is incredibly important. What makes it particularly difficult is that security is always evolving. With more people working remotely, securing apps has become even more important, and is definitely affecting the trends of 2021.
Given the increasing number of people relying on smart devices and home computers, many of the trends are expected to be around automation and improved security. This blog takes a quick look at the likely security trends for 2021 to help you keep your business and your customers' data safe.
Endpoints have long been a potential vulnerability, and more focus has gone toward making them more secure. Hardware manufacturers have taken endpoints into consideration as a part of the design, resulting in some initially expensive hardware cryptography specific to addressing the endpoints. However, the cost has been steadily decreasing.
Apple is already incorporating cryptography elements into their hardware. People who develop on the Apple platform can use this addition to store encryption info and keys to provide another level of protection. As the price of the technology continues to decrease, other producers are looking at adding hardware-based cryptography, something that developers should start looking for as a part of their security development.
In-app purchases have been gaining in popularity for years, going from nearly $13 billion in 2012 to more than $130 billion during 2020. Unfortunately, eCommerce has not kept pace with the necessary security measures to protect the transactions and data.
It is likely that people will continue to make purchases over apps, so improving security is essential for keeping customers' trust. Things like application hardening will help encrypt sensitive information and anti-tampering functionality to prevent others from accessing both personal and financial data. Application hardening uses several levels of protection to secure data by minimizing security risks through vulnerabilities.
Most apps have some form of financial transactions, making this an important consideration. Doing the minimum really isn’t enough anymore because apps have become a fairly easy target for theft. Securing your customers’ financial information should be one of your highest priorities.
Traditionally, the focus on development has been on getting things done, then testing to find where the vulnerabilities are. Instead of waiting until the end of the development phase, security trends are moving toward providing the necessary tools to build security into the app instead of considering it after the app is largely developed.
These are newer tools as they are used during the development process, not more as a method of quality control. This means that developers are becoming more knowledgeable about the tools and more thorough security measures that make data safety an integral part of the app. Such a major change in thinking will take a bit to get accustomed to, but it does make the apps more secure from the beginning instead of figuring out what is wrong when significant changes are much harder to complete.
While security is becoming more integral from the beginning, there are numerous penetration tools that do look for vulnerabilities. However, it will still be necessary to test apps for vulnerabilities. This kind of testing is repetitive, making it more effective when it is automated instead of having to do it manually.
The problem tends to be that automated testing has been too shallow for a thorough assessment. Conducting more thorough automated penetration testing does take longer, with the most common range being between 5 and 10 days to complete. These tools are being improved, and with more consideration for security during the development process, these tools are becoming more specialized. As a result, there is actually a demand for more specialists to run these tools.
Open-source elements, particularly libraries, are convenient and are incorporated into a majority of the apps – an estimated 99% of all apps have incorporated at least one open-source element. The convenience they offer is also a significant liability. Malicious hackers are able to use the vulnerabilities they find in the open-source and exploit those vulnerabilities in any apps that have incorporated the open-source components.
More developers are taking this into consideration and are finding ways to mitigate or eliminate known issues or vulnerabilities. It isn’t necessary to stop using open sources. There is a good reason why so many apps rely on open-source components; it doesn’t make sense to constantly reinvent something that is already available for free. However, it is important to ensure that the vulnerabilities are addressed to keep the app secure. Addressing those vulnerabilities during the development process will be integral to keeping customer data safer.
By the end of 2020, there was definitely a growing need to provide as much security for mobile devices as for a computer or laptop. Since customers don’t really think about their devices the way they think about their computers and laptops, it is up to the app developers to protect their data. It’s something that app developers should be seriously considering already. The current security trends are trying to catch up to the growing needs of consumers, but it is also essential to make it easier for developers to make the apps more secure and to identify problems earlier.