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If developed properly with a quality user experience in mind, this app can significantly improve your sales and customer engagement. Creating an app is no straightforward process, however, and there are many things to consider during development, like proper planning and hiring the right development team, and much more. The first one can be covered during the discovery phase, and the other one – with IT Staff Augmentation services. But one thing that is sometimes overlooked is the importance of cybersecurity when building the application. One thing that is sometimes overlooked is the importance of cybersecurity when building the application. This article aims to discuss the importance of cybersecurity when developing an app and what you can do to improve this security.
What Cyber Threats Exist Today?
Today, many hostile individuals out there strive to break apps once they’re released, exploiting certain weaknesses in an attempt to extract sensitive data from networks connected to that app. The sort of data that can be stolen in a data breach can include many things, such as addresses, dates of birth, medical information, contact details, and other personal information. As well as this, payment details and other types of critical data can be stolen, which can arguably be more problematic. There are many different types of cyber threats out there, including phishing scams in which unsuspecting individuals are tricked into giving away personal details, ransomware and malware that can infect devices and exploit owners, and also, in this case, direct network attacks.
How Can Someone Access A Secure Network?
The words “secure network” are sadly slightly misleading. No network is definitively secure, and this should never be taken as a guarantee for safety. Just because you have taken precautions and have secured your network doesn’t mean that an experienced hacker cannot find their way into your network by exploiting certain weaknesses. The primary method that a hacker will make use of is by entering a network via some form of backdoor access. To explain this terminology, we should consider the concept of a home intrusion. Often, we spend a lot of effort securing the front of our homes with security systems, but some people may simply forget to lock their back door because the garden seems secure enough. A quick hop over the fence and a turn of the doorknob will provide them with easy access, and more often than not, you won’t notice that someone has been in. Detecting an unauthorized user that has gained access through a backdoor in your network is just as difficult, if not more so.
App Development Security Steps
Luckily, there are plenty of experts out there constantly developing new ways to counteract these cyber-attacks, but there are also plenty of others who work to develop more ways in which they can avoid these security measures. The best thing you can do for your business is to work with an experienced cybersecurity team. When it comes to developing your app, you’ll also want to figure out how to keep this as secure as possible, as these can take the role of one of the backdoors we mentioned. When developing your app, you’ll want to consistently test your software to ensure it can’t be broken to allow access to malicious people. You can use security software that does something called fuzz testing, for example, to try and confuse your app and open up vulnerabilities. This article will help you understand fuzzing a bit better, but ultimately the process of fuzzing will then allow you to fix those weaknesses in your app and provide you with a much more secure network.
Post-Development Security
You can do several things to ensure your app is secure when developing it, including the aforementioned fuzz testing, encryption, and using good coding practices. As well as improving your security during development, you’ll also want to take security into account after finishing development. As we said before, technology is constantly being improved, and hackers’ methods to access your data will be enhanced alongside that. An app or other piece of software that is extremely secure today may be straightforward to exploit in five years. This is why it’s essential to keep on top of your security, updating software and implementing new and improved security systems as time goes on. Adding additional authentication processes and improving data storage security can substantially reduce the risk of a successful hacking attempt.
The Consequences Of Poor Security Implementation
While there is the chance that your app or your business as a whole won’t be targeted by a hostile entity, whether you have good security or not, failing to implement quality security measures into your software or network is going to significantly increase the chance of your critical data being stolen. While it’s not great for your business to lose sensitive data related to the company itself, losing the data of your customers, clients, and business partners can do much more damage to you in the long run. Losing this data can cause a lot of damage and harm your relationship with these people, which might lead to them searching elsewhere for similar services and products. This will hurt your profits and hamper your growth. Therefore, ensuring you have the best possible security is very important.