Mobile applications massively drive modern business, and developing and launching them are top priorities for companies across industries. Apple has even further popularized the need for mobile applications with its famous, “There’s an app for that!” campaign.
As DevOps teams make their internal application development processes more agile and efficient to address the growing market need, there’s one critical step that can add weeks to version deployment cycles: the process of securing mobile apps.
Securing apps before a release is essential—but it’s neither quick nor easy. And this doesn’t only happen once; every time the app, underlying OS or 3rd-party libraries used by the app are updated, the app will have to be secured again. Developers spend hours protecting the products they’ve already created, instead of building new apps or making improvements to existing ones. In fact, it takes an average of five full weeks to secure a mobile app before launch.
Unfortunately, when this process lags behind, companies open up holes in their attack surface, rendering them vulnerable to malicious activity. The bigger problem transpires when you factor in a device with multiple applications, most of which contain sensitive corporate data. Application ecosystems on a single device could range anywhere from 15 to upwards of 80 applications - layer the security integration lag time on top of that ecosystem and you’ve got yourself quite the security risk.
This phenomenon is highlighted time and time again in the news, most recently with the iPhone messenger debacle, the mobile Bluetooth hacks and the news about Huawei helping African governments spy on their opponents via mobile devices. These violations raise profound concern about the devices we carry around on an everyday basis, and it’s an issue that won’t go away on its own. Ineffective mobile security will continue to generate concerns, especially as the use of these devices to store and process sensitive data increases.
Mobile devices contain a wealth of information, which make them ideal targets for cybercriminals and state actors who can gain access to sensitive information such as personal health information, industrial plans, high-security locations, and in extreme cases, sovereign policies.
So how can companies protect themselves against this epidemic?
Traditionally, the solution for companies is to hire pricey application developers with cybersecurity expertise— and even then the process takes longer than optimally desired. That’s where we come in. The Blue Cedar platform immunizes applications with security integration software that protects against the larger issue at hand, and enables application specific security. The platform offers a no-code security integration solution that embeds military grade encryption into apps and delivers the enterprise level security controls that organizations need to ensure that corporate data is always secured, even when the device isn’t under enterprise controls such as what’s is enabled by MDM (mobile device management). The Blue Cedar integration platform also provides organizations with the option to embed security from leading UEM (unified endpoint management) vendors. The massive benefit of automating the process of embedding app-level security controls into mobile apps, is that when there is any modification - to the security SDK, to the app, to the OS, or to the security libraries - an organization doesn’t have to remain exposed because of the development lag. All that’s needed is a click of a button and the org continues to be assured of security and control over the app.
While organizations and security vendors are often stuck falling on the blade when customer data is exposed, it is ultimately the responsibility of the organization to immunize their applications and prevent potential devastation to their brand, and more importantly, their customers.
