News Feature | January 26, 2016

Why Mobile App Security Can Differentiate You From Your Competitors

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Skills Mobile Developers Need To Succeed

While more than four out of five people are confident that their mobile health and finance apps are secure, an Arxan report has found 90 percent of mobile health and finance apps proved to be vulnerable to at least two of the top 10 serious security risks, revealing a great disparity between perception and reality regarding mobile app security.

Arxan’s 5th Annual State of Application Security report takes an in-depth look into the security of some of the most popular mobile health and mobile finance applications available.

The report infographic highlights the survey finding that 98 percent of the apps tested lacked binary protection and 83 percent had insufficient transport layer protection, opening them up to code tampering, privacy violations, and data theft. The study also found 80 percent of mobile app users would change apps if they knew they weren’t secure and 82 percent would switch if a similar, more secure app was available.   

Patrick Kehoe, CMO of Arxan Technologies, says, “Our research in Arxan’s 2016 State of App Security Report demonstrates that mobile app security is an important element in customer retention. Baking in robust mobile app security is not only a smart technology investment to keep the bad guys out, but also a smart business investment to help organizations differentiate from the competition and to achieve customer loyalty based on trust.”

The report also found that almost half (48 percent) of all consumers who use mobile health or finance apps anticipate that their apps will be hacked within the next six months, and so do 46 percent of the IT execs who oversee security of these very apps.

Arxan makes recommendations to app developers:

  1. Set your security standard higher than regulatory standards. Arxan points out regulatory agencies lag behind what cybercriminals are doing, so applications approved by these agencies can still be vulnerable.
  2. Address risks that are being neglected. Arxan says to address the OWASP Mobile Top 10 Risks.
  3. Look at security as a competitive advantage. Remember security is becoming a major influencer in purchasing decisions.