The security of mobile devices and software products remains one of the top concerns for both developers and users. But while users only need to follow the most basic rules that help them protect their devices and sensitive data (e.g. set strong passwords or avoid unprotected public connections), every year developers have to find increasingly sophisticated approaches to protecting their products. With their new tools and methods, hackers and other unfair players will definitely not leave developers alone in 2023.
And in this article we want to cover the main security trends for mobile applications that will determine the direction of development in this area, which is still in its early stages. While the features and capabilities of mobile apps that we see in the market are constantly expanding thanks to the hard work of developers, there is still a lot to be done when it comes to their security.
According to various studies, the proportion of apps that have at least one vulnerability that can lead to critical data loss is quite high (around 70-80%). What is extremely alarming is that experts in these studies did not analyze just any entertainment apps, but rather financial solutions that appear very attractive to hackers. Therefore, if your company has custom mobile apps or you are only considering one option for launching an application, we strongly encourage you to read this article to learn about the latest mobile app security trends.
Trend 1. Less attention to detecting jailbroken and rooted devices
A few years ago, mobile app developers used various jailbroken and rooted device detection mechanisms to find potential threats that could pose serious risks to applications. We should admit that it is still a very popular approach, but its popularity and importance is expected to decrease already in the near future. We can already see today that many developers of mobile software prefer to rely on more solid protection methods. And there are a few reasons for that.
- Today there are already many sophisticated methods to “hide” rooted and jailbroken devices from all detection mechanisms.
- Rooted and jailbroken devices can also be used for non-malicious purposes. But when developers use their detection mechanisms, these devices will also be found, which will seriously affect the user experience of the owners of these devices.
Now there is a clear need to find other mobile security solutions that are not just limited to root and jailbreak detection as this approach has already lost efficiency. Instead of looking for devices that could possibly be used by unfair players, it makes more sense to focus all efforts on defining potential threats and ensuring advanced protection at different levels.
Trend 2. Exploring new mobile vulnerabilities
Developers are already aware of many different vulnerabilities that are considered common in the market. It is well known that standard security measures are not effective when protecting many apps. But the crucial problem is that even now not all vulnerabilities can be uncovered. There are still many vulnerabilities in many apps that developers can’t detect, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t discovered and used by hackers and scammers, especially given that they’re constantly looking for new ways to gain access access to users’ data and assets.
This means that another important area that mobile app developers need to focus on is scrutinizing their apps to identify new vulnerabilities and remediating them appropriately.
Trend 3. Introduction of new protection solutions for mobile apps
It’s clear that when the demand grows, someone has to meet it. Because of this, we can expect many new protection solutions for mobile applications to appear on the market. Many of these solutions promise to quickly and easily secure your mobile apps. Their developers claim that these solutions will be able to check the security of any mobile app. But can they really? Theoretically yes. However, do they have the required level of accuracy in how they work? That’s a whole different question. And there are some doubts whether mobile app developers can fully rely on such solutions.
Instead of a last word
As you can see, mobile app security is still a pretty pressing issue for developers and today they have to do their best to ensure strong protection of their products. Currently there is no such solution that can fully guarantee you the absolute protection of your mobile application. But there are already many expectations for mobile app security improvement in the near future.
