Data Not Handled Safely by Forty Percent of Mobile Apps

According to a research, approximately 40% of mobile applications that are used are not safe for handling data. The research was conducted across a set of enterprises to find out the state of mobile application security audit. According to the end result, more than 40% of mobile vulnerabilities detected were related to unsafe and improper handling of data.

The sectors conducting business mainly through mobile and web applications are BFSI and Ecommerce. The companies are already taking proactive measures and all the necessary precautions that are required to secure the data transactions taking place through their stores. The future is going to see a lot of other services that are going to be enabled through mobile. This means that businesses need to have a good focus on mobile app security.

Tests were conducted on top 10 mobile app vulnerabilities listed by OWASP and the conclusion that came out was that 17% of mobile apps experienced accidental leakage of data. There was data storage insecurity in 23% cases and weak server side controls was the issue with 10% cases. Approximately 100 mobile applications were tested by many Indian companies and as much as 21,000 mobile app vulnerabilities were found. This confirms that lot of enterprise mobile apps can be affected by data leaks.

Various security breaches have taken place with Android apps. There have been a number of hacking incidents, that have been reported on Android apps. Critical mobile apps on Apple iOS systems are more susceptible to security threats than Android apps. Both Android and iOS operating systems have the same amount of high level vulnerabilities. But, for the critical vulnerabilities, it was found that Apple iOS was 67% more vulnerable as compared to Android apps which were 33% more susceptible.

Increase in the use of Smartphones is considered to be one of the reasons for rise in vulnerability risks. All mobile apps used in Smartphones have access to the information in user's Smartphone, which makes it all the more risky. Businesses have to find out ways in which they can protect their critical information, which makes mobile and web application security really important.   

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