A Study on Mobile Application Vulnerabilities and Mobile Application Security Best Practices

Running head: MOBILE APPLICATION VULNERABILITIES 1
A Study on Mobile Application Vulnerabilities and Mobile Application Security Best Practices
Name Surname
University
Course
May 30, 2018

MOBILE APPLICATION VULNERABILITIES 2
A Study on Mobile Application Vulnerabilities and their Mitigation
Article Reference
Basavala, S. R., Kumar, N., & Agarrwal, A. (2013). Mobile Applications -Vulnerability
Assessment Through the Static and Dynamic Analysis, 2013(Cac2s).
Summary
Over the past decade, we have observed a massive adoption of technology in all sectors
of our lives. Mobile technology has greatly influenced our lives, and over the decade, significant
advances have been towards its advancement. Mobile applications popularly known as apps are
types of applications designed to run on mobile devices.
Apps enable the mobile users to get the same service or even better as those available in
the PCs. Apps were first offered to improve productivity and the retrieval of information from
online platforms such as email, weather channels, and stock market sites (Dwivedi, Clark, &
Thiel, 2015). Eventually, their usage has spread to mobile gaming, GPS, automation, mobile
banking, ticketing and social usage. The usage of mobile applications has significantly been
adopted with the emergence of smartphones and has seen usage in sectors such as banking,
health, and e-commerce sites (Basavala, Kumar, & Agarrwal, 2013). This paper will outline the
inherent risks brought about by the usage of mobile applications by organizations and
individuals. Finally, we will look into ways in which these risks are mitigated through policy
change, use of security software and technical controls. These mitigation techniques all makeup
best practices, which are then applied at various levels of app development such as design,
source code development and the deployment of such applications.

MOBILE APPLICATION VULNERABILITIES 3
A mobile application often runs on smartphones, tablets, and mobile devices and are
usually available in a distributed platform or stores operated by the owner of the platform such as
Google Play store, Apple app store, Windows Phone Store and BlackBerry App world.
With the increase in the capabilities of mobile devices and the massive consumer
adoption, mobile applications have become integral in people’s lives. With the high usage of
such applications in areas such as banking and finance, attackers have found a new platform in
which to exploit and target a large population. The nature of deployment of such applications
makes it possible for an attacker to use a standard vector of attack to affect millions of device.
This is because mobile applications are usually in common platforms such as iOS, Android,
Windows, and BlackBerry (Basavala et al., 2013). For example, Android devices have adopted
an “open application” model in application development which has led to many apps which have
hidden functionality which can be used as attack vectors with devastating results. Many
companies have deployed mobile applications to be used in their operations and service intake
without further interaction save from the app. Companies such as Uber offer their services
entirely in an app and have reaped the rewards and benefits by use of applications.
Unfortunately, with the benefits and flexibility of mobile applications come insecurities
and complexities, which bring about fraud and security risks. While most platforms have
attempted to build secure platforms to deploy mobile applications, such apps are often designed
and coded using questionable and insecure practices leading to insecure applications (Basavala et
al., 2013). Application security is often an afterthought during application development; the quid
pro quo often lies in delivering functional applications within the given timelines at the expense
of app security.