Mobile App Security: Protecting the New Endpoint in the Enterprise

Mobile apps have become an integral tool for enterprise productivity and customer engagement. Globally, approximately 4 billion iOS and Android mobile devices are in use, each with an average of 80 apps that receive updates around 12 times a year. This results in trillions of app endpoints that routinely handle sensitive data, connect to cloud services, and access critical enterprise systems. In contrast, there are about 1 billion active desktops worldwide, making mobile apps the newest and largest attack surface in today’s digital landscape.

However, mobile app security has never been more critical nor more challenging. Once simply a driving force for innovation, the mobile app ecosystem has rapidly transformed into a complex environment where threat actors are continually searching for vulnerabilities, exploiting code weaknesses, and aiming to compromise the tools organizations rely on to succeed. The sheer volume of mobile endpoints and the frequency of their updates underscore the massive scale at which data is harvested, transmitted, and potentially exposed to security threats on a daily basis.

The Mobile App Security Challenge

For enterprise security teams and CISOs, this presents a daunting challenge: safeguarding a widespread, evolving landscape of mobile apps, while enabling the organization to innovate and grow. The stakes are high—not just in terms of potential data breaches and financial losses, but also in the loss of trust that can result from the exposure of sensitive information. Mobile app security risks include:

• Increased attack surface: Each app, whether developed in-house or a third-party app used to run a business, introduces new endpoints that attackers can exploit. Failure to control this expanded attack surface can lead to multiple entry points for cybercriminals, making it easier for them to infiltrate the organization’s network.
• Financial impact and operational disruption: Mobile app security breaches can lead to direct financial losses through theft or fraud, and incur indirect costs such as legal fees, incident response, and customer compensation.
• Customer trust and business continuity: A mobile application security incident can impact customer experience and trust, resulting in customer attrition and a decrease in brand loyalty.
• Intellectual property theft: Proprietary algorithms, business logic, and sensitive product information embedded within apps can be reverse-engineered or stolen by competitors or malicious actors. Protecting intellectual property through secure coding practices, code obfuscation, and encryption is essential to prevent unauthorized access and safeguard competitive advantage.

Top Mobile Application Security Vulnerabilities

OWASP has identified the 10 most critical vulnerabilities that affect mobile apps in their OWASP Mobile Top 10 list. These most critical mobile app security vulnerabilities include:

1. Improper Credential Usage: When credentials are exposed to improper usage, it can lead to unauthorized access and data breaches. Using publicly available or custom-built tools, threat actors can wage automated attacks to find and collect vulnerable credentials. Hardcoded, improperly validated, or insecurely stored credentials can all be vulnerable, enabling attackers to gain unauthorized access to sensitive assets and potentially access functionality of the mobile device.
2. Inadequate Supply Chain Security: The use of third-party libraries and components can offer invaluable assistance in streamlining mobile application development. However, without proper security checks, the use of these third-party components can introduce critical vulnerabilities. Of the top 10 mobile risks, this is rated the most difficult to detect.
3. Insecure Authentication/Authorization: Authentication and authorization represent the gatekeepers of mobile app security. When weaknesses exist in these mechanisms, sensitive data can ultimately be exposed. Once vulnerabilities are identified, attackers can bypass authentication and gain direct access to backend systems. In addition, they can log into an app as a legitimate user, bypass the authentication control, and gain access to a vulnerable endpoint.
4. Insufficient Input/Output Validation: To establish effective mobile app security, it is vital to validate and sanitize data from external sources, including user inputs and network data. Failing to employ these mechanisms can introduce exposure to serious security threats, including SQL injection, command injection, and cross-scripting attacks.
5. Insecure Communication: Today’s mobile apps typically share data with multiple remote servers. When these communications aren’t secure, transmissions can be vulnerable to eavesdropping and interception.
6. Inadequate Privacy Controls: Failing to implement strong privacy protections around personally identifiable information (PII) can lead to a range of potential issues. When a users’ private data is exposed, they can be susceptible to identity theft, financial fraud, and many other dangers. Privacy breaches can also present a significant risk to businesses, leaving them exposed to fines, lawsuits, and reputational damage.
7. Insufficient Binary Protections: App binaries can contain a range of sensitive assets, including API keys, cryptographic assets, and critical business logic. App binaries are susceptible to reverse engineering and code tampering. For example, if attackers can gain access to binaries, they can manipulate the code to include malware and even repackage the code and distribute it via app stores.
8. Security Misconfiguration: Today’s mobile apps can be exposed through a broad range of misconfigurations. When security settings, permissions, or controls aren’t optimally configured, apps can be vulnerable to a significant number of threats.
9. Insecure Data Storage: Mobile devices and apps now store a range of sensitive assets—assets that may be targeted by cyber criminals, nation-states, malicious insiders, data brokers, and other nefarious actors. At any given time, weak encryption, exposed credentials, and more can leave these sensitive repositories exposed.
10. Insufficient Cryptography: In many ways, encryption represents the last, most vital line of defense for sensitive assets. While encryption can offer essential safeguards, weak or improperly configured implementations can be vulnerable to cryptographic, brute-force, or side-channel attacks. Through these approaches, adversaries can decrypt, access, and manipulate sensitive assets.

Pillars for effective mobile app security strategy

For effective mobile app security, executives must take the lead by prioritizing and investing in security measures, especially as the mobile attack surface expands in both size and complexity. Rather than constantly reacting to threats and managing the consequences of data breaches, organizations can adopt preventative mobile application security strategies to mitigate risks before they manifest. We don’t have to accept risky apps as the norm. Instead, by fostering a proactive approach, we can create a safer mobile environment for everyone.

Develop a mobile security-first culture

Creating a security-first culture within an organization involves embedding security into every aspect of mobile app development and deployment.

• Encouraging a security-first mindset: Security should be prioritized across all departments. Regular training between development, operations, and business units is essential for a unified security strategy. Educating users on how to responsibly use the mobile app can greatly improve its security.
• Collaboration between app developers and security teams: Collaboration between developers and security teams is crucial for ensuring a secure mobile app. This includes integrating security reviews and audits into the development process, along with open communication to tackle security issues.
• Regular testing and monitoring apps: It is important to regularly test and monitor mobile applications for vulnerabilities and potential threats, otherwise known as “mobile app vetting.”

Future-proofing mobile app security

Effectively addressing mobile app risks requires a holistic strategy involving development practices, security measures during production, and end-user perspectives. While eliminating all code weaknesses is challenging, organizations can proactively enhance their mobile app security by taking the following:

Secure mobile app development best practices

• Integrate security throughout development: Incorporating security checks at every stage of the development life cycle helps identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities early. This includes static and dynamic testing, secure coding practices, and regular code reviews.
• Regular mobile application security testing and patching: Regular security testing and promptly patching identified vulnerabilities are crucial to maintaining robust security. This includes static and dynamic analysis, as well as penetration testing to simulate real-world attacks.
  • Static AST (SAST): This approach analyzes the app’s binary code before compilation to uncover security flaws at the code level. SAST is typically employed early in the development process.
  • Dynamic AST (DAST): DAST assesses the app’s behavior during runtime, simulating attacks to detect vulnerabilities in production.
  • Interactive AST (IAST): IAST inserts agents into the app to analyze both its code and behavior during manual or automated testing. Unlike SAST and DAST, IAST focuses on specific parts of the app, as defined by the tester, rather than the entire code base.
• Vetting third-party libraries and SDKs: Given the widespread use of third-party components in app development, it’s essential to vet these for security vulnerabilities and maintain an updated inventory of approved libraries and SDKs.

Quokka’s Q-mast delivers static, dynamic, and behavioral analysis to uncover risks in code, libraries, and dependencies. Real-world vulnerabilities are exposed through custom user journey simulations, while built-in compliance with OWASP, GDPR, and NIAP ensures apps meet security standards. With seamless CI/CD integration, Q-mast automates security testing at scale, providing detailed, actionable reports with remediation guidance.

Secure mobile apps within your mobile fleet

• Vet iOS and Android mobile apps for security and compliance risks: Organizations need to find malicious and risky behaviors like app collusion and unnecessary data collection that could put confidential data at risk or leveraged in a future attack. The mobile app vetting process should align with privacy and security standards, including NIAP, NIST, and OWASP.
• Enforce mobile app security policies with MDM or UEM integrations: Mobile device management (MDM) solutions play a critical role in ensuring users can access corporate resources on their mobile devices. But while MDMs help in managing mobile endpoints, they lack the ability to identify and prioritize mobile app security risks. Organizations should integrate mobile app vetting with their MDM for in-depth app intelligence and actionable insights.
• Maintain ongoing reviews of new app releases to ensure continued security: New app versions are released regularly and each new version needs to be reviewed for security and compliance risks.

Q-scout enables security teams to vet mobile apps while substantiating their decisions with precise, data driven insights. It provides evidence needed to confidently approve or block apps, ensuring compliance, safeguarding privacy, and protecting organizational assets from mobile threats. Q-scout allows automatic reviews of new versions and scales effortlessly for BYOD or COPE environments.

By integrating security into organizational processes, mindsets, and practices, companies can better protect sensitive data, enhance user trust, and maintain business continuity in an increasingly mobile-centric world.

Quokka helps secure your mobile apps

By partnering with Quokka, organizations can ensure that their mobile app ecosystem is protected against emerging threats and vulnerabilities. We work closely with our customers to understand their specific needs and customize our solutions to fit their unique security requirements. With our cutting-edge technology and experienced team, we are committed to providing the highest level of protection for your mobile apps.

To learn more about how Quokka can enhance your organization’s mobile app security, request a demo.