Mobile App Fraud Cases are on the rise: 600% Grim Growth since 2015

Mobile apps have become the phishing ground of the modern day hackers and attackers looking for not just users’ personal/confidential data but also for their money.

A report was recently published by RSA, which shows the gruesome side of the mobile industry and reinstated the need for mobile app development companies to answer what they are doing on the security front.

It is reports like this and cases like Facebook Data Breach and Uber Data Hack that highlights the concern that surround million of users – Is my Data Safe on your Mobile App?

The report highlighted statistics like –

• Phishing accounts for over 48% of the cyber attacks happening around us. Regions like the United States, Canada, and India are targeted most by the attackers.
• Fraud and Consumer transactions on mobile are walking side by side. In the first quarter of 2018 itself, around 55 percent of the total transactions done on an active network connection has originated through the mobile route and over 65 percent of the fraud transactions that happened over 2018’s first quarter, happened on a mobile application.

What’s worse is that in just a year, rate of frauds happening on mobile apps, have increased by 50 percent.

• Out of all the fraud attacks that have been happening since 2015, financial malware cases are at the top.

These statistics are only a speck of other fraud findings that RSA report highlighted. What this piece is aimed at is finding solutions to this grim picture of a time when the million of user data is out in the open waiting to be hacked and what’s worse? The source of leak can be your app.

Here’s how you can ensure that your app is not the source of data leak

Check all your APIs Thoroughly

APIs are an important functionality that is present in almost all apps of the present time to give users a convenient, interruption free app experience, but it is also a technology that tens to leave out loopholes for hackers to enter from.  A simple lack of TLS and SSL certificate can open your app up to a high risk zone. This is the reason why the implementation of SSL Pinning in iOS and Android is necessary.

Encryption certificate is just one, you will also have to ensure that you are not overlooking XML and SOAP, and that there is no loophole in Business Logic Flaw in the API design.

Multifactor Authentication System

Through multifactor authentication, you will be ensuring that even if one layer is breached, there are more that the hacker will have to cross before they get inside the app.

Multifactor Authentication system is known to have reduced the cases of data hacks and financial malware drastically.

Read: The 4 Ways to Implement Multifactor Authentication System in a Mobile App

Get Codes and Libraries’ Updates Checked from an App Security Expert

Updating your libraries and making your app more in sync with each OS version they are operating on is a full proof way to ensure that it is not hacked. But, after every code update, make it a point that you run it through a team of Quality Assurance experts, who specialize in Mobile App security.

It’s time to get moral and conscious of the data that users are willingly giving us.

THE AUTHOR

Tripti Rai

Content Manager