The increase in internet usage has occurred due to the proliferation of apps. At the same time, this growth in mobile app usage has also raised a lot of app security questions, which is the next big challenge that all businesses are facing today.
By 2021, the app market is projected to grow to a USD 189 Billion industry, growing at a rate of 270% approximately.
It is a prime discussion in any business, how we can implement a better app security, keys of which are tied to the development of the application.
What are the best app security features your website needs?
So, what separates the pretenders from the legitimate, built-for-business software? Architecture and security. The cheap amateur software focuses mainly on the look and feel but skimps on the architecture and security.
App development software that’s truly designed for business will include flexible architecture and business-class security features, which are discussed one by one.
Importance: Unless every employee in your organization should have access to every application, application-level security is a must-have. For example, your CEO might have access to all applications, while your HR department can only access applications related to HR.
Single sign-on (SSO) is a session/user authentication is a centralized & linked process that lets users enter their name and password in only once & access multiple related applications. It authenticates the user for all the applications they’re authorized to access & eliminates login prompts when switching between the applications in a single session.
Importance: SSO reduces the number of passwords end user must remember and cuts down on “forgotten password” support requests. It also improves the end user productivity as the user no longer require to log in to each new application, which is otherwise linked together. For example, most of the applications now accept either facebook/twitter/email login such that you can access multiple applications at a time while logged in just once.
User privilege parameters are used to personalize features and security to individual users or user roles. These user privilege parameters are saved to a user’s profile and accessible throughout every application.
Importance: User privilege parameters are incredibly flexible. They can control an application’s look and feel, add or hide user options, limit user capabilities, and more. For example, suppose your company had a customer listing application.
User privilege parameters could be set to display an “Update Customer Info” button only when accessed by a manager. While all other employees could access the same app, only managers could see the option to update data.
Business-focused application development software should offer flexible authentication options–letting you authenticate your applications using your choice authentication sources you already have in place.
Importance: This means you don’t need to change your current authentication methods or create & maintain yet another user table. It lets you take advantage of the authentication methods you already use.
Importance: As mentioned above, different users/user groups must have varying levels of data access. For example, suppose you need to build a sales report, but each salesperson should only have access to his/her sales figures.
Rather than building separate applications for each user, multi-tenant security lets you create one application that displays different data applicable to each user role. For example, the same OLA app has different views depending on each customers account & the value-added/paid services he has subscribed for.
This security feature is similar to row-level security but on a database level. It means you can build a single application that accesses different data sources depending on the user.
Importance: This security feature provides flexibility, as it lets developers dictate which database each user can access. For example, suppose two companies are merging. While employees from each company must now use the same application, employees from Company A might need access to a local database, while employees from Company B might need access to data from a completely different database. With user-specific data sources, the application will point to the correct database based on the user.
Application activity auditing lets developers log end-user activity for signin/signoff activities. This lets IT departments quickly see when a user has logged in, which application they accessed, and when they have logged off.
Importance: When managing application security, it’s quite useful to know who is logged in to your system. On a non-security note, activity auditing analytics also help your company to understand which applications are being used and which are being ignored.
What is the importance of mobile app security?
Mobile apps are largely considered unsecured because they need continuous internet connectivity. This is heightened by the fact that many users try installing apps from unreliable sources, thereby inviting malware & hampering the security of other apps on the device as well.
Report by Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive Security Labs depicts, an estimated 16 million mobile devices worldwide have been infected by malware.
This trend, therefore, points to a future where mobile security is of utmost importance. As identity thefts and credit card hack become more commonplace, certain security measures need to be implemented so as to ensure strict user confidentiality and overall security.
What are the best mobile app security features?
Security is not confined to only desktop applications, but also Mobile app security is important these days. So, talking about Mobile App Security here is the checklist, that needs to be considered by developers & businesses before progressing with mobile development.
Recommendation
In order to avoid such development complexity, time & cost of the development & shorter time to market, the best option is to build your application with a ready-made software solution.
These solution providers also ensure application support, which means, you need not break your head to fix a security issue, they will take care of your overall application development, security & maintenance.
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