How To Secure Your Android App?

Tags: android, apps, software
Published: 2021-05-24 07:21:41

In this digital world, people use mobile apps for a wide range of purposes,  from transfer of funds to investments, order food and groceries online etc. Security of mobile applications is one of the most prominent concerns. According to the study, 35% of communications over mobile phones are unencrypted. This shows that more than one third of data transmitted by mobile devices is exposed to threat.

The Android operating system has many built-in security features like application sandboxing, protection against buffer and integer overflow attacks and segregated memory areas for program instructions and data. When you develop a complex app, it is your responsibility to make it secure and protect the privacy of your users. Organizations should protect their apps while enjoying the benefits that these apps provide. Here we discuss the android app security best practices to refer while building your mobile applications.

You should also know the considerations to build mobile app at- 7 Important considerations when building a mobile app

#Android App Security Best Practices-
**1. Keep the native code secure-**
So as to keep the native code secure, android app developers should use android SDK for mobile app development, instead of Android NDK. Whenever you collaborate with one of the developers, ensure that experts use Android SDK. When the native code is integrated during the development process, app receives data over the network. This can come from files or an IPC, that might be exposed to security factors. Hence you should secure the native code by using Android SDK during the development process.

**2. Use HTTPS-**
All communication between your app and servers must be over HTTPS connection, mostly using the HttpsURLConnection class. Many android users connect to several open Wi-Fi hotspots in public areas every day. Some of those hotspots could be malicious and malicious hotspot can easily change the contents of HTTP traffic to make your app behave in an unexpected manner or worse still, inject ads or exploits into it. 

Using HTTPS, as long as the server is configured with a certificate given by a trusted certificate authority, like DigiCert or GlobalSign, you can be certain that your network traffic is secure against attacks. If app has huge networking code and you are anxious about the possibility that you may accidentally be sending some data as cleartext, you should consider using nogotofail, an open source tool built by Google to find such mistakes.

**3. Secure The Data-in-transit-**
Sensitive data that is transmitted from client to server should be protected against privacy leaks and data theft. If you lose a device, or it gets stolen, the whole application containing business data should be deleted. This ensures that important data does not go to the wrong hands. Selective removal of data enables the IT department or users to wipe off the company data in devices. It is recommended that use either an SSL or VPN tunnel, which ensures that user data is protected with strict security measures.

**4. Encrypt Data On External Storage-**
Internal storage capacity of android devices is generally limited. So, you you may have no option except to store sensitive data on external storage  media, like, a removable SD card. As the data on external storage media can be directly accessed by both users and other apps on device, it is important to store it in an encrypted format. Most popular encryption algorithms among developers is AES(Advanced Encryption Standard), with a key size of 256 bits. Writing a code to encrypt and decrypt your app’s data using package javax.crypto that is included in Android SDK can be confusing. So mostly developers prefer use of third-party libraries like Facebook’s Conceal library, that are usually easy to work with. 

Know more at- [https://solaceinfotech.com/blog/how-to-secure-your-android-app/]