In this ever-evolving world of digitization and online access, a lot of companies find themselves in an awkward position. The development of mobile apps is direly needed, and beating the competition to the punch is of the utmost importance. But these are no reasons to sacrifice security, which is what most enterprises are doing right now.
Enterprise App Security Remains A Key Problem
It is difficult to come across an application that does not exist yet, while companies are competing to serve as many potential customers as they possibly can. In fact, most traditional “branches” of app development are often overpopulated. As one would expect, among the myriad of apps are quite a few who do not meet proper security standards.
Keeping customer data secure should be the number one priority for every company developing a mobile application. Unfortunately, that is not always the case, as there is a schedule to adhere to as well. This uneasy situation creates a clash between convenience and security, which usually ends up favoring the former.
A new report by Coleman Parkes shows that a lot of businesses continue to sacrifice security to get their apps released faster. While it is understandable that companies want to gain a competitive edge, there is hardly any first-mover advantage in the mobile app world. In fact, it is often better to wait for other apps to be released, as those rushing to market will either have bugs or faulty security design.
CA Technologies’ SVP and Cybersecurity CTO, Nick Nickols stated:
“How do you secure something that is much more ‘out there,’ and not entirely under your control as much as it once was? “You can’t define a rigid perimeter and put defenses outside the perimeter. You can’t think of everyone on the outside as being bad and everyone on the inside as being good.”
While the IT side of things matters to every company developing their own app, they also see the security part of development as a burden. Not only is this a costly business, but it also requires many weeks, or even months, of testing to make sure data can be kept confidential. Such a delay does not please stockholders and other investors, by any means.
At the same time, a strong focus on app security can make it cumbersome for users to deal with particular services. While it is true that customer data needs to be kept safe from prying eyes at all times, consumers want nothing to do with clunky and cumbersome security features either. It is a very fine line to walk, and one that is very difficult to create for most enterprises.
Company IT departments all over the world are trying to find new ways to provide security and convenience at the same time. An identity-centric approach seems to be the favorite approach right now. Using behavioral analytics will ensure that user identities are valid, while the end user won’t notice anything different. At the same time, this leaves room to ask for additional user identification whenever it is needed.
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