As mobile technology has advanced, so have intrusive and malicious mobile apps. IT needs to stay ahead of mobile application security risks by using all its available screening resources. Mobile apps often introduce vulnerabilities or risky behaviors that could lead to unauthorized access to mobile devices and corporate networks, unexpected escalation of privilege, and data loss, leakage, or theft. Here’s some tips to mitigate a wide array of organizational risks introduced by mobile apps and BYOD programs.

1. What are the risks to your Mobile App Security?
What to choose and what not to choose?
With over 1.5 million mobile apps to choose from on your phone, finding the ones
that ou eed hile ai tai i g ou de i e s se u it does pose a ealisti
problem to a growing proportion of people today. This figure increases by the
thousand every week while hot new apps are being highlighted in app stores
with nothing more than a quick algorithm filter or review system to separate the
good from the malicious.
These defensive actions from vendors do t quite seem to be cutting it, as an
average of 2,400 unsafe applications have been installed on the phones of
employees working for large enterprises. In this case, these unsafe applications
either expose sensitive data, perform activities that are suspicious like recording
phone calls, and share employee personal information with a third party.

2. Additionally, this study looked into hundreds of thousands of mobile applications
currently running on corporate devices.
How are all these unsafe apps getting on your phone?
Many people like to consider the apple app store as the best in mobile app
security because of their application screening process automatically looks at
every app before approving it for store implementation. Of course, this process
can only do so much when it is up against having to look at the minute details
within an application s odi g, so the a ks a e t e a tl ha d to slip th ough,
especially for malicious activities that phish for your personal data.
On the other hand, Android give its security controls mostly over to the consumer
with an extensive review system. Needless to say, this type of system has innate
flaws within itself.
So where do all these unsafe apps originate?
Be ause so a o ile app de elope s out the e e og ize that the f o
s at h odi g p o ess a take a huge a ou t of ti e, f ee ode is utilized f o
all over the internet. With only a small snippet of code inserted into a functional
seg e t of a app s de elop e t, a ha ke a pull i fo atio f o o ile app
users after it is installed onto a phone without the developer even knowing.
Other sources of risk for smartphone applications
A significant reason that mobile applications are targeted more than their
counterparts on the desktop, is because mobile applications create a temporary
cache of information to make your device perform faster. Unfortunately, this
cache is especially easy for hackers to pull information from as it can feed directly

3. from your smartphone application. To try to solve this issue, developers can
either require a password to be created for their app, or the user can create
automatic cache deletion function to wipe the application each time it restarts.
Another issue for mobile app users is the implementation of outdated or non-
existent encryption methods. Because applications often hold very sensitive data
like credit cards, it goes without saying that modern effective encryption
algorithms are a must-have.
What is it that you can do?
Undoubtedly, mobile applications are growing in popularity, but they are similarly
growing in risk. It s e o i g uite o o fo mobile app users have to ask
the sel es Ho u h do I t ust the de elope of this app? efo e eithe
i stalli g o e te i g se siti e i fo atio i to it. If ou e o e ed a out ou
o ile app s se u it o p i a , it ight e a out ti e that you considered
protecting it. There are actually quite a few methods that have been developed
by modern techies looking to help people just like you.
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/censorship-limitations-610101