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      Hacking & Security

      Best App Security Practices Every Developer Must Follow in 2021

      • Posted by kensmith
      • Date January 30, 2021

      We live in a world of apps. There’s a mobile app for almost everything, so it makes perfect
      sense if you, too, want to develop an app for your business (or have developed it already).
      However, 2020 has taught us that our responsibility as an app developer is not only to create an app,
      we have to find the security risks, and mitigate them. Apps that compromised
      user security and privacy were hit hard by their users and Google in 2020. So you should
      ensure while coding your apps in 2021 that you follow some app security best practices
      essential for the safety of your apps and user data.

      Now you must be wondering, what are those best practices? Here we will tell you about 9
      Android app security best practices that must be followed by every developer in 2021.
      Let’s begin!

      #1. Force usage of strong passwords

      One of the most basic yet underrated things about app security is passwords. Developers
      often do not pay enough attention to them, but all security begins with passwords. If you
      allow your app’s users to use weak passwords for their accounts, their data may be stolen
      easily by various attacks like guessing, brute-forcing, etc. Enforce the use of strong
      passwords in your app by creating passwords that require a mix of alphabets, numbers, and
      special characters. No one should be allowed to create an account on your app until they
      make such a password. Some of your customers may hate you for it, but this is an essential
      step for app security.

      #2. Enforce secure coding standards.

      Coding is an art, and secure coding is another level of skill. It takes a certain level of
      knowledge, experience, and expertise to be aware of all secure coding best practices and
      become habitual of incorporating them while coding an app. Therefore, in 2021 you should
      try to enforce safe coding standards in all the apps you develop. That requires hardening of
      code while considering various important parameters. Some of those parameters include:

      • Unnecessary modules and servers
      • Storage of session information
      • Software’s access to filesystem
      • Access to servers having sensitive information.
      • Possibility of remote code execution
      • Agility of code
      • Maximum time consumed in script execution, etc.

      These are a few of the various important parameters that must be considered while
      developing an app to enforce secure coding standards.

      #3. Sign your code

      SSL certificates make mobile applications more trustworthy. Always sign your app’s code
      with a code signing certificate (a type of SSL certificate) before compiling it. Code signing certificates helps users ensure that the app installer has indeed been developed by you
      only and no one else has tampered with the installer file after you compiled it. Suppose
      someone tampers with an application installer whose code has been signed. In that case,
      the code signature becomes invalid, and the operating system prevents the installation of
      such an app by warning the users who try to install it. So if someone tries to compromise
      your applications installer file by injecting malicious code in it, they won’t be successful
      because users will be alerted of it even before installing the app. You can buy code signing
      certificates and install them on your computer to sign your app’s code.

      #4. Use authorized APIs

      APIs are tricky. While their purpose is to streamline app development and reduce
      complications involved in accessing data and interact with external components if they’re not
      appropriately coded, they can unintentionally allow hackers to crack into your app and steal
      user data. Therefore, you should use only centrally authorized APIs in your apps for secure
      mobile app development. You should also avoid caching of authorization data because
      that provides another point to hackers who want to steal authorization information and break
      into your app.

      #5. Source Code Encryption (Obfuscation)

      No discussion on cybersecurity can be complete unless we talk about encryption, which
      applies to secure coding. Encryption scrambles the plain text information into unreadable
      strings of text that won’t make sense to anyone until hashed with a private key. In coding,
      the encryption of source code is known as obfuscation, and it achieves the same purpose
      (making code unreadable), although in a slightly different manner. Instead of hashing the
      code, obfuscation increases its unreadability by removing comments, renaming variables,
      and removing whitespaces. Obfuscation tools also use many other techniques to make the
      source code unreadable, and you should use such tools in 2021 to make your code tough to
      break-through.

      #6. Use third-party libraries carefully.

      Third-party libraries are used heavily by most app developers to incorporate new
      functionalities, integrate external services, and achieve a variety of other purposes. While
      they’re handy, using them ties your code to the code of a third-party. This may lead to two
      significant problems:

      • If there’s a vulnerability in the code of the library, it also becomes a part of your app
      • If you decide to change the library in the future, that means making significant
        changes in your app’s code and functionality.

      That’s why you should be very careful while working with third-party libraries to code your app.

      Always use well-developed and reputed libraries with a long history of reliability and a stable community around them.

      Also, keep updating your libraries regularly and make use of internal repositories whenever possible to limit the risk for your app.

      #7. Ensure proper session handling at all times.

      Often, websites also get hacked because they fail to manage the session information of their
      administrators or other users in a proper way. And it’s more critical to handle sessions
      carefully on mobile devices than for desktops because, on mobile devices, sessions last
      much longer than they stay on desktops. Here are some tips that you can follow to ensure
      correct session handling on all types of devices:

      • Always use tokens instead of device identifiers for the session ID. Tokens can be
        revoked (i.e., expired) at any point in time, something that’s not possible for device
        identifiers.
      • Enable the functionality of remote log-off and remote data wipe for lost devices.
      • Use lengthy strings for tokens that are hard to generate by any automated tools and
        don’t reveal any other meaningful information.

      #8. Pay attention to data security

      When you develop your app, you can choose between using internal storage or external
      storage to store app data. This choice should be made carefully because data stored in the
      phone’s internal storage is protected by a proper permission structure set up by Android,
      unlike external storage, whose permission structure is an all-or-none affair. So if your app
      requires local storage of sensitive user data, always use internal storage to store your app
      data. If that’s not the case and your app doesn’t require storing sensitive user data locally,
      you can use external storage for app data. You may also consider adding your layer of
      encryption over the default encryption layer of Android for sensitive data stored in internal
      storage.

      #9. Automate your vulnerability management

      Finding vulnerabilities and fixing them is not a one-off task that you can do when developing
      your app and then forget about it. It requires constant auditing and bug fixing to create and
      maintain a secure and challenging app to break-through. Therefore, instead of doing this
      task yourself, we would advise you to automate your vulnerability management. There are
      tools available in the market that can scan both iOS and Android apps for vulnerabilities and
      fix the loopholes that they find automatically. Endpoint Detection and Response tools (EDR),
      Network Access Control (NAC) tools, and firewalls can help you in this regard.

      Conclusion

      These were the nine critical best practices you must follow in 2021 for the security of your
      apps. The last few years have taught us a lot about these steps’ importance as many
      notable cyberattacks on mobile apps took place. Therefore, it’s essential to take these steps
      seriously and implement them carefully while coding your app.

      If you’ve any questions about any of these steps, share them in the comments. And if not, start coding your app with these
      best practices.

      All the best!

      • Share:
      author avatar
      kensmith

      ken smith is a seo executive who working in techiposts. He loves reading and writing blogs.

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