In today’s world, the mobile applications are witnessing exponential growth and the consumers make sure that the convenience element is present in the whole process which is the main reason that they are dependent upon the utilization of mobile applications. But the hard reality with the usage of mobile applications is that it also comes with a lot of vulnerabilities in the whole process which is the main reason that developers need to focus on different kinds of aspects so that they launch the safest and highly secure applications into the market. Hence, the developers in this particular field need to have a complete and comprehensive idea about the OWASP top 10 mobile vulnerability risk list so that there able to deal with everything perfectly and efficiently.
This particular list is a threat list that ultimately helps in identifying different kinds of security risks that have been faced by mobile apps globally. This particular list received the latest update in the year 2016 and the best part is that this particular list acts as the best possible guide for all the developers so that they can build the safest and secured applications by incorporating the best of the practices in the industry. The complete categorization of this list has been mentioned as follows:
- M1: The improper usage of the platform: This particular point deals with miss usage of the operating systems in the organizations which ultimately make the applications very much prone to different kinds of things. The risk associated with android intent sniffing, key changes, data leakage risk and several other kinds of risks is directly linked with the whole process. Hence, the organization needs to indulge in the best of the keychain and android intent practices so that risks are perfectly dealt with.
- M2: The improper storage of data:This particular point deals with several kinds of risks for example compromised file system storage and the exploitation of unsecured data. The best practices include the implementation of the android debug bridge and several other kinds of things so that management of the things has been perfectly carried out.
- M3: Insecure communication: This particular point deals with several kinds of risks associated with the telecom carrier and other internet related things. The common risks include the stealing of information, man in the middle attacks and the admin account compromise. The best practices for this particular concept include the assumption of the network layer, avoiding mixing of the SSL sessions, alteration of the users, sending the sensitive data, separating the layer of encryption, secondary defense confidentiality violation and several other kinds of things.
- M4: The insecure authentication: This particular point deals with the utilization of things correctly and allows the application to log in with the default credentials. The most important risks include insecure user credentials and the input form factor. Hence, the best practice is to be followed by the people concerned in this particular area is to follow different kinds of security protocols and utilize the online authentication methods along with proper encryption in the whole process so that alphanumeric characteristics are always present in the passwords and security has been given a great boost.
- M5: Insufficient cryptography: This particular point deals with hackers having physical access to mobile devices so that malicious applications can be easily launched. Hence, to deal with this particular point of risk the developers need to indulge in best practices for example choosing the modern encryption algorithms of encrypting the applications, choice of an algorithm that has been tested by the committee and depending upon the national Institute standards and other guidelines so that emerging threats are dealt with perfectly.
- M6: Insecure authorisation: This particular point also has proper access to the risks like unregulated access to the admin and point and IDOR access. It is important to indulge in the right kind of practices in this particular area so that continuous testing has been perfectly carried out and developers can implement the right kind of user authorisation scheme along with running of authorisation checks so that permissions are minimised and functionalities are significantly reduced with the help of user management schemes.
- M7: The poor quality of code: This particular point is directly associated with inconsistent coding practices so that every member of the development team follows different kinds of coding practices which is not advisable to any of the organisation. Hence, to deal with this particular point it is very important for the organisation is to follow consistent coding practises and ensure that mobile-specific code, cold logic and static analysis has been perfectly carried out along with library version and content provider systems.
- M8: Code tampering: This particular point deals with accessing different kinds of codes so the tempering of the applications can be dealt with perfectly and there are no manipulations in the whole process. The most common risks include malware infusion along with data theft. It is important to depend upon best of the practices for example data Erasure and runtime detection so that the best decisions are always made.
- M9: Reverse engineering concept: This particular point is directly linked with exploiting the occurrence so that hackers are utilising the external and commonly available by the inspection tools. The most common risks include code stealing and access to premium features along with dynamic inspection at the runtime. The best of the practices should be perfectly implemented for example utilisation of similar tools and implementation of the code obfuscation concept.
- M10: Extraneous functionality: It is very important to deal with this particular point in terms of several kinds of risks for example sharing of information to the database, user permissions, user details and application programming interface and point. The best practice is to be dealt with this particular point include the descriptive logs, ensuring that full system logs are available, noticed code is present and several kinds of things are perfectly implemented.
Hence, having a clear-cut idea about the components of security solutions regarding all the above-mentioned points is very important so that perfect applications are launched in the market.