Due to the exponential growth in the use of mobile applications and consumers finding more convenience and ease of multiple activities, the challenges related to the apps have also increased.
Having an idea of the basics of Owasp’s top 10 is very important for modern developers so that one can remain aware of the significant changes very easily and further sustainability in the mobile landscape will be easily achieved. The critical insights of owasp top 10 are explained as:
M4- Insufficient input and output validation: The new category in this case will help to highlight the importance of validating the input and output data in the mobile apps. Proper validation is vital in this case so that many issues can be prevented and overall data safety, as well as integrity, will be maintained. For this, implementing the comprehensive input validation on the client and server end is possible so that one can deal with the approaches very easily and have a good hold over the use of data.
- M6-Inadequate privacy controls: Reflecting the growth and global concern of privacy is also very important as this category will help to address the risk related to insufficient privacy concerns. This will very easily focus on PII- personally identifiable information to ensure that content mechanism for data collection and handling of user data. Developing a clear policy for privacy that will inform the users and keep them updated is important to ensure that practices are very well in compliance with the legal requirements.
- M8- Security misconfigurations: This particular category will deal with the challenges due to incorrect and incomplete security configurations. This will have the deployment of the apps with default settings and permissions. Regular security audit in this case will help to review the environment very easily and will help to disable the debug information. This will also help to ensure that all of the components will be set to secure values and that the permissions will be carefully configured as per the principles.
- M1- Improper credential usage: This is the updated category and will help to highlight the risks related to the misuse of credentials in mobile apps. To ensure proper protection, safety storing the credentials and use of the platform security storage solutions like Android Keystore and iOS Keychain. It is important to avoid the storage of sensitive information in plain text and implementation of the additional measures is very well recommended.
- M2-Inadequate supply chain security: This will help to reflect the growing importance of supply chain integrity and will also help to focus on the risks in the supply chain of the apps. Conducting the proper vetting in this case is very well recommended for people so that the third-party integration will be done and updates of the apps will be carried out. Regular updates of the apps are very much important so incorporating the security patches will be very well done. This will help to make sure that the software composition analysis is very easy and will also help to improve the basic monitoring.
- M3- Insecure Authentication: This will help to focus on the importance of the robust authentication mechanism in the mobile app to ensure that there is no unauthorized access. Implementing a strong system is very important so that multi-factor authentication will be done to ensure the security of the user accounts. It is also vital to carry out authorization checks so that sensitive information will be sorted out.
- M5- Insecure communication: This has been renamed to address the risk related to insecure data transmission like interception of sensitive data due to use of the unencrypted channels. Usage of the TLS- -Transport-Layer-Security for the data in transit is important so that implementation of the certificate pinning is done which will help to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. This will always help to streamline the communication and will also help to make sure that all of the endpoints are safe and secure with up-to-date encryption algorithms.
- M7- Insufficient binary protections: This will combine the risk of code tampering and reverse engineering very easily from the 2016 list. It will be focused on the protection of the binary code of the apps very easily. To improve the protection, using the obfuscation techniques is important which will help to make the reverse engineering very much difficult. This will help to implement the tamper detection mechanism as it will help to alert you if any sort of modifications are made. You can focus on using the tools that will help to harden the binary against many attacks.
- M9-Inseucre data storage: This will help to include the risk related to the extraneous functions from the 2016 list. It will focus on safe practices and strong encryption so that overall protection will be improved. Encrypting the sensitive data in this case is important for people to ensure that local storage is very well dealt with and the hard-coded applications will also be sorted out. You can focus on applying the safe storage practices in this as recommended by the mobile operating system.
- M10-Insufficinet Cryptography: This will combine the risk of broken cryptography from the 2016 list. This will highlight the importance of strong and properly implemented practices to ensure data safety at all times. It will help to improve the confidentiality and integrity very easily.
- M7- Client code quality (removed category): This option has been removed from the 2016 list and now has been merged with the M4 in the 2024 edition.
Hence, remaining aware of the Owasp top 10 is very important so that the ever-evolving landscape of mobile security threats will be made clear to the people. This will help to streamline the decision-making very easily and will also help to ensure the effective tackling of the most pressing security risks. To go deeper into this concept, getting in touch with the professionals at Appsealing is highly recommended for modern-day developers so that one can get the best level of assistance and carry out the prevention strategies very easily.
