Mobile App Security

Do you have an outstanding app idea in your head? Something that could be a cash cow for your business, then you should protect it at all cost by safeguarding it with intellectual property laws. Especially when you know for a fact that it might get used by the competitors with better resources and team. This is when you can utilize the power of copyrights, patents and trademarks, to fiercely guard your idea.  

A patent is a type of intellectual property law which prohibits others from ever using your creative ideas without your approval. It facilitates you to restrict anyone else from designing or marketing your ideas. 

There are basically two types of patents: non-provisional and provisional. A non-provisional application doesn't grant ownership rights but does allow the patent applicant to use the idea in further studies and discovery, as long as certain conditions are met. A provisional patent does grant ownership rights and can be used in commerce, but it's not a binding contract.

Why should you patent app ideas? 

• To prevent competitors from engulfing the large share of the mobile market by stealing the ideas.
• To encourage innovation within the industry because the process for patenting software and other technology is notoriously tedious and time-consuming.
• Secure the ideas from illegitimate or non-consensual use.

How to patent app ideas? 

• Find a patent lawyer and register 

You would require to consult a seasoned attorney concerned with software patenting in order to convey an accurately designed exceptional patent and to make sure it makes the cut.    

It may include litigation, since it is a legal matter. Therefore,  conduct a comprehensive research and search for the most skilful lawyer in your acceptable budget.

• Reveal your invention

The entire application development process document must be submitted before the court. In addition, make an app prototype to test its flow so that the attorney could also assess its flowchart because it is not the code but the app protocols, features and functionalities which get patented.

• Conduct a “patent search” with the attorney

Hire a patent specialist who scans for apps that are identical to yours internationally or have similar architecture and functionality. 

You can curb any unforeseen violations by other organisations or competitors. It is easier to invest certain money and to make absolutely sure that your invention has maximum chances to get patented.

• File an application 

As stated earlier there are two kinds of applications - provisional and non-provisional. When you pick a provisional application, you can request without formal claim, statement or even declaration of data disclosure

While in non-provisional file, You can file without the need for a statement on the request written in a Convention nation or without an App reference present in the proceedings 

Submit the application to the authorized patent office

Well, it’s a daunting process which requires a lot of paperwork - everything in the right order. Here are some of the papers that you need to include in your file; 

• Specification
• Declaration
• Statement of data disclosure
• Entity status form
• Claims
• Application datasheet
• Designs
• Cover sheet of patent cooperation treaty
• Fee datasheet
• Application to make it special 

EndNote

Follow these steps carefully and you will have your application patented in no time. The procedure may seem complicated at first, but it’s worth it more than filing lawsuits on clone apps and fighting with competitors that breach the law.

Enlisted below are the most popular Mobile App Security Testing tools that are used worldwide.

1) ImmuniWeb® MobileSuite
2) Zed Attack Proxy
3) Kiuwan
4) QARK
5) Micro Focus
6) Android Debug Bridge
7) CodifiedSecurity
8) Drozer
9) WhiteHat Security
10) Synopsys
11) Veracode
12) Mobile Security Framework (MobSF)

The answer to the above question is part “Yes” and part “NO.”  To know why it is so we begin with TLS basics.

TLS (Transport Layer Security ) is a security protocol for web browsers and other applications to securely exchange the data over a network. In other words, the TLS encrypts data sent over the internet to ensure that hackers are unable to see what you transmit.  The entire process is validated through a certificate issued by the CA or Certificate Authority. 

It is the modern version of SSL since the modern web browsers no longer support SSL 2.0 and SSL 3.0.  

There are three main objects to TLS: Encryption, Authentication, and Data Integrity

• Encryption: It hides the data being transferred from third parties.
• Authentication: It verifies the parties identity exchanging information
• Data Integrity: It ensures that the data has not tampered or forged

 ( Image source: securityevaluators)

Mobile applications should either use a certificate or public key pinning to ensure that communications between users and app servers are propagated securely. It’s a way to authenticate that the server certificate associated with the site or application is trustworthy. 

After verifying the website or app server’s identity, the certificates create encrypted channels of communication between the server and visitors.   

Everything is safe with TLS until certificate authority (CA) is the victim of a fraud.  The compromised CA will issue a valid certificate to hackers/criminals, and they will use it to exploit the applications. Comodo and DigiNotar are well-known examples of compromised CA.

TLS pinning in mobile apps

Specifically, when you are talking about the mobile app, the hackers use the MITM (Man in the middle attack) method. It enables complete manipulation with data packets, including eavesdropping, monitoring, altering, and discarding. The compromised app gives data access to hackers that are being transmitted between the point of origin and the destination. 

( image source : thesslstore)

With the TLS pinning, an extra security layer is added to these apps, making it difficult for hackers to access it. The hackers have to exert more effort and resources into breaking through the encryptions, which could be an expensive affair.  

The TLS pinning encrypts the data across the network and does not allow third-party inspection. It facilitates an anti-eavesdropping communication channel that delivers privacy protection for users and their data.  .  

It even gets better if a developer has embedded TLS reporting infrastructure. The developer can get a report on the app every time an eavesdropping attack or MiTM attack is performed. By tracking these reports, the developer can analyze the pattern of the attack.

Is TLS pinning effective against mobile hacking

TLS can only assure the protection of the communication to the respective endpoint, but not the security of the underlying protocols. Also, in many countries, the CA or certificate authority cannot be fully trusted.  Hundreds of intermediate certificates exist worldwide, and it often misleads companies to pick a certificate with low-level security.  

However, to block the issuance of incorrect certificates, the DNS CAA ( Certificate Authority Authorization) was proposed. This security mechanism allows domain owners to decide which CAs are authorized to issue certificates for a given domain. Only the CAs listed in the DNS CAA record can issue the host’s certificate.  It may provide some level of protection against certificate misuse, but some hackers can bypass DNS CAA.  

Therefore, a mere TLS certificate is not enough to guarantee secure internet communication between web servers and clients. But we also have to admit that without TLS certificates, you are more vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

Those who are using previous TLS versions with RSA could be susceptible to Bleichenbacher robot attacks. It is recommended that static RSA support be disabled across all versions of TLS to deal with the potential vulnerability.

Wrapping up,

Mobile apps with anti-eavesdropping protection via TLS pinning are more secure than their web app counterparts. It provides a strong security feature to mobile apps; however, one cannot deny that TLS pinning is 100% hack-proof, especially when the device is jailbroken. 

The TLS pinning may be an effective approach to strengthen your app security, but pinning without effective jailbreak/root detection and other advanced binary/runtime protection would be pointless.