How to Guarantee Mobile Application Security

Mobile applications are ridiculously popular these days. Make sure yours is safe and secure by following these simple steps.

One of the biggest industries of our time is the mobile app ecosystem. Recent research studies show that there are more than 2.32 billion smart phone users in the world and that these apps are part of a trillion dollar industry! With so many applications on our phones we never even stop to think what would happen if these applications were hacked.

Once an application is compromised, the data on your phone confidential or otherwise is prone to cyber-attacks and leaks! This is why mobile app developers go out of their way to ensure that their apps are safe for the people who download them.

Here are a few steps you can take to make sure that your app is impossible to hack.

Protection Against OWASP Top 10 Threats:

Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) threats are a grim reality of the times we’re living in. Examples include Remote File Inclusion, SQL Injection and Cross Site Scripting (XSS) etc. While these threats are very complicated and take a lot of time and effort to be addressed, there are many companies out there who do a great job of ensuring that your device is protected against them!

Encrypt Your Source Code:

By far the most common mistake that mobile developers make is leaving their source code unencrypted. This allows mobile malware to spot and exploit vulnerabilities. What’s even worse is that when hackers get their hands on a copy of the source code, they’re able to reverse engineer the app.

Once they have control over the app they can add their malicious code on it and republish these ‘rogue’ apps on app stores. When your clients download this app their confidential data can be leaked. This is why it’s important for developers to always encrypt the source code of the application.

Invest In Binary Protections:

A distinct lack in binary protection can result in leaks of sensitive and confidential data. Moreover, if these safeguards aren’t present, it leaves both the application AND the user exposed to cyber-attacks!

Binary protections are thus a crucial part of cyber-space security. Their absence enables hackers to use your confidential information to partake in illegal activities posing as you! Furthermore, there’s also a very high chance of business interruption! Because of all these reasons, it’s always a wise idea to invest in binary protections!

Bring In The Professionals:

If you’ve developed your mobile application and don’t want it to be used for nefarious means, we have great news for you! We at Lean Security offer comprehensive services for end to end mobile application penetration test!

What separates us from our competitors is that we aren’t content with just testing your mobile application, we even check for vulnerabilities in the network and at the backend web service that you use! Our scans protect your applications from major problems like authorization and authentication issues, broken cryptography and weak server side controls.

So if you’ve made an app that will help complement your business, don’t let it all go to waste! Contact us today and let’s make that application safe not just for you but for your clients as well!

Bulk Up On Web Application Security by Following These 3 Tips

Fortifying a website or online business module against cyber-attacks is easier said than done. While you might think that your business has nothing to offer hackers so it’s pretty safe as is, but that simple isn’t the case! There are countless groups who hack into servers of small businesses and utilise their servers to either relay spam mail or to facilitate the hosting of illegal files!

Therefore, beefing up cyber-security should be your chief concern. If you have no idea how to go about it, follow these simple yet extremely effective tips to improve web application security.

Tip #1 – Software Updating:

By far the easiest way of securing yourself against hackers is by regularly updating your system software. While that may sound trivial to you at first, it’s more important than you think! When a security update is rolled out, the developers update the definitions of security threats. In simpler terms, by updating your computer you’re effectively protecting it against hacking!

To establish the importance of software updates, let’s take Windows 8 as an example. The popular operating system took the world by storm back in 2012. However, after just a few years, Microsoft has ‘abandoned’ Windows 8! They stopped rolling out security updates and people were given the option to either migrate to Windows 8.1 or Windows 10!

Now, the people who didn’t comply missed out on crucial security updates and were left exposed to hacking! All of this could’ve been avoided had they just updated their systems!

Tip #2 – Penetration Testing:

Penetration testing is an important element of cyberspace security. The process commences with a security company attacking your online servers to find points of vulnerability. At the end of the process, you receive a comprehensive report highlighting the weak points of your online presence!

What makes penetration testing services so effective is that these security companies don’t use nefarious means to probe your server; they use the tools publicly available to your clients! Thus, if a security company can locate chinks in your digital armour, there’s a high chance that people looking to hack your services can too!

Penetration testing is thus a simple yet very effective way of finding exposed points and fortifying them!

Tip #3 – Managed DDoS Protection:

No website can be considered completely safe until it’s shielded against DDoS attacks. For those of you who don’t know, a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack crashes your servers down and makes it easier for hackers to leak confidential data. This is why you need protect your clients and your business from these attacks.

A typical DDoS protection service monitors all the traffic on your server, and as soon as suspicious activity is detected, it’s flagged and sent to a remote server so that your website remains unaffected! What’s great about these services is that your regular clients don’t suffer even a momentary dip in speed. To them, it’s just business as usual!

If you’re looking to fortify your online presence, we at Lean Security would love to be of assistance to you! We offer incredible security services like managed web security assessment and penetration testing to provide total protection to your website. Contact us today to learn more about how you stand to benefit from our amazing services.

Five Security Tips For Your E-Commerce Website - Infographic

Read the useful security tips for your E-commerce website.

Why Usability Testing Is So Important

When it comes to sales, ‘Always be closing’ is the ultimate lesson. In the digital world, however, the mantra is ‘Always be testing’.

Understanding Usability Testing

Usability testing, as the name suggests, refers to measuring how easy it is for a user to use a particular digital product, such as a website or a mobile phone app, and then making changes to enhance user’s experience. To understand usability testing, it is helpful to first learn about its components. Here are 5 of its components explained:

Learnability

Whatever it is that your digital product is designed to achieve, it should be easily understandable by the user. The user must easily be able to accomplish the tasks that he/she was supposed to.

Efficiency

The product should not just help users accomplish tasks; it should help them do them quickly.

Memorability

The user must easily remember how to use the product after he/she returns to it, that is, he/she should not have to start over.

Error-Recovery

It also requires you testing the errors that users make and how easily they recover from these errors.  

Satisfaction

Finally, usability testing would want to test whether the user was happy after using the product.

Usability First – Why It Is More Important than All Other Factors

In the digital world, the user and the way he/she feels about your product is of utmost importance – after all, you have designed your product for them.

Let’s take an example. You have designed a website. It’s got all the aesthetic details, beautifully designed, pleasing to the eye and so on. However, it is just got this one basic flaw. Its navigation is weak and does not take the user to the page they desire. This means, that despite all the lavish designs you incorporated into your website, the user does not return to you and hence, the entire purpose gets killed.

When to Test and How

After you have launched a digital product, you should always be testing. This is because the digital world is constantly evolving and it is always helpful to know how the user is behaving. You can set up a schedule and have your IT department carry out usability testing.

The first time that the usability testing is carried out is at the very beginning. A beta version of the product is created and distributed among a select group of users. After they have tested the product for a few days, they provide their feedback and based on that, changes are made to the product before the final launch.

We at Lean Security are experts in security testing. Understanding the role of security in enhancing the overall user-experience, our team provides security testing for all kinds of digital products. From mobile application security testing to website security testing, we have got many security solutions for businesses.

Social Media Security – Some Common Threats

In the past few years, social media has become a phenomenon. The power of social media has been so impactful that it has completely revolutionised the way the human species communicated.

According to the 2017 Sensis Social Media Report, around 8 in 10 Australians use social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Google+ and so on. If history is any indication, the number of users will continue to increase.

With hundreds of millions of people on these platforms, they can prove to be great security risks.

As an enterprise, social media is not just about liking and befriending, it can have far-reaching consequences.

Here are some social media security threats you need to watch out for:

Mobile Phone Apps

One of the major factors that has fuelled the massive growth of social media is the mobile phone technology.

Employees’ mobile phones can contain sensitive information about the company. When a user downloads an app, he/she gives increased access to their mobile phones.

A malicious mobile app can easily get hold of that sensitive data and use it for mischievous purposes.

Social Engineering

Social engineering has been around before the computers were invented. However, with the rise of the internet, it has become a very effective tactic.

Social media has made personal information sharing quite easy. What’s more, people trust these platforms more than they should.

For instance, an employee’s new Facebook friend can win his/her trust and get critical inside information about his/her company.

Human Error

Human error is a major threat on social media platforms. From accidental tweets to clicks on phishing links, human error on social media can bring about massive reputational damage.

Employees must be trained to be careful when accessing social media from company’s profile.

Phishing Scams

Phishing scams are messages that seem to come from a legitimate authority, but have a malicious intent.

Recently, there was a phishing attack on Facebook, named Fake Friend. What it did was that it sent a message telling people that their friends had mentioned them in a comment. As the user clicked that link, it would download a Google Chrome extension with malicious intent.

Weak Privacy

Having weak privacy settings will mean that your social channel will be vulnerable to attacks. From sending fraudulent posts to marring your channel’s appearance, hackers can do some real damage is privacy is not taken care of.

Most social media platforms have a comprehensive privacy settings’ option. You should implement a strong privacy policy.

With a team of social media security specialists, Lean Security provides web service and mobile application security testing. Our goal is to make online world a better place. Visit our website for a free web application security health check.