COVID-19’s Best Practices for Building Secure Mobile Applications

A worldwide catastrophe this contagious virus COVID-19 pandemic has raised endless problems to mankind. The restrictions we face today are something humans are not used to. Commonly termed as Corona Virus, this disease primarily affects the lungs of a person making it harder to breathe.

With the specialists still working on inventing the cure, we are mandated to work within the four walls of our house.

The IT Infrastructure is playing an important part in these situations. With the help of multiple secure mobile applications out there we are able to keep a track of our infection in our surroundings. As an initiative from their end, Google and Apple collaboratively have formed an alliance on a project called the Contact Tracing Project. Developed by Apple and Google for their respective iOS and Android, the first revelation of this was done on the 10th of April 2020.

It is a suburbanized reporting based protocol built on the integration of Bluetooth Low Energy technology and privacy-preserving cryptography, which enables the identification of an infected person.

Such a commonly known secured mobile application in India would be the Aarogya Setu app. This application gives timely alerts regarding the whereabouts of the viral spread.

Aarogya Setu is designed in a way to keep track of other app users that a person came in contact with. It then alerts users if any of the people they have come in contact with are positive for COVID-19.

All these secure mobile applications are coming in handy as a precautionary measure against the Corona Virus.

In order to get the best results from such apps, these applications require a format that needs to be followed.

The secure mobile applications ask the users about some basic details like:

● Name of the user

● Location

● Phone number

● Access to you contacts

● The basic symptoms of the disease

● Medical history

● International travel history

By accessing this data, the application will be able to assist the user regarding the COVID-19 virus whereabouts. With the user being feeding such extensive data to mobile applications, there are chances of the apps being vulnerable.

The security of such sensitive data is the responsibility of the developers and the organization developing the applications. The application needs to be secure from cyber attacks and information disclosures. To prevent any such incidences, some of the best security recommendations are:

1. Top tier authentication

The mainstream reason behind the violation of security is feeble authentication. By authentication, meaning the usernames and passwords or other detectors that act as impede access. Though it solely depends on the end-user, the developer’s encouragement to being sensitive towards authentication must be done.

Regularly updatable strong alphanumeric passwords are one of the ways to enhance authentication. Using other diverse ways like fingerprint scans, or OTP generation can be yet another method to secure authentications.

2. Encryption of the entire database

Encryption of each and every single unit of data within your application is a must. Encryption is nothing but a bizarre cocktail of alphabets which makes no sense to the reader unless and until they have the key to that encryption.

So hypothetically, even if the database is compromised, it is still safe from being read or abused.

3. Secure code

Simpler the code, the easier it is to back development. Encode your application with the hardest code you can and write secure code by sanitizing input parameters. The most common entry point for cyber threats is from the unsanitized parameters and hardcoded passwords and keys in the code. All the hacker needs is a public copy of your application and then reverse engineer your code.

To prevent that, make sure that your code is difficult to decode.

4. Regularized testing

Security is an endless process. With new updations, new threats arise, which need new solutions. But when you make sure your mobile applications are regularly tested by any external penetration testing company such as SecureLayer7, the apps become more secured and protected from varied issues and vulnerabilities with secure mobile application penetration testing.

This is yet another way to protect your accessed database from any external violation.

OWASP mobile top 10 Mobile bugs

In the scope of application security, the Open Web Application Security Project or commonly known as OWASP is a security framework standard, which also defines methodologies, documentation, tools, and techniques for security assessment and for developing secure mobile applications.

Though being secured, it is possible that the application may be at risk from cyber-attacks. But if you know the attacks beforehand, it is much easier to protect the applications from them.

The top 10 Mobile security gaps that you need to safeguard application are:

1. Improper Platform Usage

2. Insecure Data Storage

3. Insecure Authentication

4. Insecure Communication

5. Insecure Authorization Risks

6. Insufficient Cryptography Risks

7. Poor Code Quality Risks

8. Client Code Tampering

9. Extraneous Functionality Risk

10. Reverse Engineering

Look out for these bugs. Once you have identified and understood the above-mentioned risks, the protection of the applications will become much easier.

Along with the year 2020 being the COVID-19 year, it is possibly the year of some mobile sneak attacks. With one and all being restricted to be indoors for their safety against Corona Virus, everyone’s reliability and inclination towards the use of mobiles have for sure increased; rather multiplied.

But along with this temperament, comes the threat of the entire mobile data being vulnerable to massive cyber crimes.

The top Mobile bugs that everyone needs to be aware of, are:

● Gaming spoofs:

Taking advantage of a majority of people engaged in gaming activities, hacking into people’s mobile phones will be just a golden opportunity for hackers. Creating sham games to gain access and exploit the user’s data.

● Cheat app ranking systems:

This particular is a new type of malware, wherein third-party sign-on is put to use. This malware abuses the accessibility feature in Android to download apps, create accounts post reviews using the configured user’s credentials. There are a variety of methods through which the activation of the accessibility is enabled.

For developing secure mobile applications, we need to be aware of the commonly known threats or vulnerabilities from the beginning itself.

Conclusion:

In today’s time of COVID-19, with the mass usage of the convenience of mobile phones, it is easier to gain access to the users’ device. A stitch in time saves nine they say. If you are able to find out the glitches in time then and only then can it be prevented from spreading any further.

To help improve the security of applications, creating secure mobile applications to fill in the mobile security gaps is of utmost significance

In the race to contain the spread of an exceptionally transmissible infection, many have immediately sent technical innovations to encourage arranging, observation, testing, contact following, isolate, and clinical administration have stayed leaders in overseeing malady trouble. The far reaching reactions of that have been effective at regulation and moderation can give understanding to the rest that are as yet confronting a flood of cases.