Mobile phones and mobile applications have revolutionized human daily lives. Every day a new app is launched containing more efficient and feature-rich elements to ease human lives. But these android applications come up with many security concerns. These concerns can be followed and removed by application developers at the very initial stages. These security and safety measures are part of outlining, developing, and even deploying strategy of any application. Only the best security practices can reduce the vulnerabilities and security alarms.
Safety is not only important on the business end but also on the user end too. Several elements factor into developing an android app. In a climate where data breaches, hackers, and cybercrime are much more frequent than before, security must be emphasized before embarking on a new initiative. Here are ten tips to ensure your android application gets off to a safe start.
1. Involve the security department from the start
Security must be incorporated into the android development approach from the very first meeting of the dev unit. When making a modification or planning an extensive revision, immediately inform the security department to prepare for any risks that might occur. Things go smooth when from the very start (requirements gathering phase) involves the security requirements on the note. After that development, testing, and product deployment phase will automatically react in response to those gathered requirements. When application security is questioned in the testing phase or quality assurance it indirectly questions the whole team including the project manager.
2. Keep testing again and again
QA is a vital element of developing secure code. Like security as a broad concept, it should not be added at the end. It is necessary to regularly examine your code to discover any possible security flaws and then patch them before going public. The testing team must develop use cases based on requirements obtained from several stakeholders. Then these test cases determine the tightness of security and protocol layers around the product.
3. Do not rely on the security of third-party connections
Only 16% of programmers rely on third-party components, indicating that third-party code is not always safe. 40% of those third-party modules are not reviewed. Do not be another one of those app developers that trust third-party code. Scrutinize your third-party components to ensure their safety. For instance, third-party maintainable codes are generated by someone who can also crack them anyway. Therefore, the chances of being attacked are increased when auto generated codes are used for building secure applications.
4. Be wary that API
APIs have become an essential element of backend development. However, they can also be a security nightmare because they frequently need to interact with the external world. Check that the APIs you are utilizing have been validated for the building system. A very useful tip to avoid API-related issues for any application development is, use a new API every time you develop an app. Used APIs make applications prone to risks therefore, every time a new API must be rendered for a new app.
5. Consider yourself an attacker
Time spent hunting for methods to crash the app must always be included in technical reviews. Do not quit at deceptive problems; certain assaults are so unlikely that you can always verify and prepare for everything. Put your feet in the shoe of a hacker and consider what are the most viable ways to attack the developed application. This way you must be finding many loopholes to fill up before making the app market-ready.
6. Reduce attacks vectors by limiting rights
Each authorization that an app requires is yet another connection that it has. The finest defended fortresses have just one entrance; consider your application to be a fortress and remove all those concealed entrances and secret tunnels. Permissions and authorizations are needed everywhere because they are keys to connectivity. To make your developed application more secure and tenable, these permissions must be one-time or on-time just.
7. Be aware of what is saved on a device
Spend the effort throughout the development of your application to decide the optimum location for user data, not only for convenience but also for the consumer’s sake and extra security. Always program your application in such a way that it stores data using device internal storage. External storage or third-party spaces make it approachable for everyone and from this point attacks come in. for storing sensitive information android applications must not use cache files rather safe registries.
8. Safe data transfer
TLS, VPNs, SSL, and encrypting data among both sender and recipient can all assist in safeguarding transmitted data. Find a technique to verify that your app is reliably delivering and obtaining data so that it cannot be stolen or changed. Any applications’ safety and security are mainly linked with the channels and ways of transferring data from one point to another. When making a connection with other applications or websites, your application must filter down the pathway first. After that data must be transferred in encrypted and encoded files. Safe data transfer is the game-changer for any applications’ security.
9. Make use of tokens to manage transactions
Tokens are the only legitimate way to handle user logins within the current app environment. You must utilize them to handle user sessions more effectively. They are not only easier to cancel to maintain user security. However, they are also highly user-friendly, always beneficial for an application. User sessions must be secured to avoid any illicit activities of their accounts. For this purpose, one-time code generation has to be integrated with every transaction to make sure the actual account owner is making the transaction.
10. Include tamper-proofing measures
There are several techniques to tamper-proof an Android application, so employ one or several of them to secure your consumers and your status as a reliable software choice. To avoid the copycats on the internet implementing tamper-proof measures is one of the best techniques.
