According to a new report by enterprise security company Positive Technologies, Android and iOS users have a lot to worry. Because the company’s report reveals that almost 75% or three-quarters of Android and iOS apps are not secure enough. The security company analyzed all the apps that are available on the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
After that, it was found out that the apps have an issue of insecure storage. This can affect personal and private information as details such as passwords, financial details, personal data is available to hackers.
Apart from the most common identified security issue which was insecure data storage, there were more vulnerabilities too. It must be noted that “high risk” classified vulnerabilities were found on 38% of the iOS apps and 43% of Android apps which were tested. Also, the report raised concerns regarding the fact that these apps don’t run only on the client’s phone. Rather, they also send data to a server hosted by the app’s developer. We know that this is necessary for getting data and performing the required query but this is where the vulnerabilities were found.
The report also suggests some actions that clients should take to avoid being compromised. First of all, clients are advised to check which permissions an app is using and deny permission if it is felt to be unnecessary. As these type of permissions are often used to access the internal storage of smartphone which has no relation to the app usage.
One obvious-yet-notable revelation is that the report recommends not to jailbreak or root your iOS or Android smartphone respectively. This possesses a security risk and you should not put sensitive information on a rooted or jailbroken device.
Positive Technologies report concludes that Android v/s iOS “difference is not significant, and the overall security level of mobile application clients for Android and iOS is roughly the same.”