While you may have heard of penetration testing, did you know there are several types of pentests? The reason behind these variations is that while all forms of penetration testing are to the benefit of your organization, no single solution can check every box.
One common type of pentesting is mobile application penetration testing, which is designed to help protect your externally-facing application, assisting in preventing customer data from being stolen.
We’ll cover all you need to know about mobile app pentesting and why you should consider it to fortify your assets outside your cyber security perimeter.
What Is Mobile Application Penetration Testing?
Mobile application penetration testing—when performed by a trustworthy vendor—is the ethical hacking method of testing mobile applications for cyber security weaknesses. This is performed with the intent to fortify your mobile applications so that they aren’t vulnerable to exploits from malicious threat actors.
Why You Should Care About Mobile Application Pentesting
External-facing applications are right outside your network perimeter, guaranteeing that they will always be a target of hackers. This means you need the best protection you can establish to ensure they serve as intended, not as a weak point for threat actors to breach.
By not prioritizing mobile application pentesting, you will find yourself at a higher risk of cyber threats—not only toward your company, but your customers are also at risk of having their personal data compromised. In fact, roughly 40% of ethical hackers can break into the systems they test. That’s not to mention the damage threat actors can cause and have caused; in the first quarter of 2023, over 6 million data records were compromised during data breaches.
As you can see, it’s more vital than ever to prioritize cyber security and penetration test services, such as mobile application pentesting, to help strengthen your organization against catastrophic cyber threats.
Benefits of Mobile Application Penetration Testing
Strengthened Cyber Security
Mobile application penetration testing from the right cyber security vendor will help identify any potential weak points in your mobile apps and help you take the next step toward patching up those weaknesses. Effective testing may identify:
- Weak authorizations, resulting in threat actors bypassing permissions and reaching sensitive data.
- Lack of or insufficient security controls, leading to more openings for threat actors to exploit.
- Reverse app engineering, allowing threat actors to understand the design and trace it back to the sensitive data.
Additionally, if requested, penetration methods can keep your IT team sharp by simulating a real cyber attack on your company. This can help you identify any weak points in how your team responds to threats to your mobile applications.
Compliance Adherence
Many external-facing mobile applications require some degree of cyber security compliance, such as telemedicine apps. Mobile apps that are designed to hold or transmit patient information must be HIPAA-compliant to ensure patient privacy and protect their information.
In the right hands, mobile application pentesting can help pinpoint any areas where you may not be compliant and proactively address the issue.
Maintained Trust and Reputation
Since mobile applications are outside your network’s perimeter, it can be challenging to launch them without at least one vulnerability. Hackers know this and actively seek external-facing applications to exploit, resulting in compromised data—both internally and externally.
Over 1.4 billion records were compromised in 2023 (with hacking or unauthorized access being the primary source of 60% of those breaches), making it more critical than ever to fortify your mobile apps, which often suffer from weaker authorizations.
Mobile app pentesting can do more than just help protect your own data; it can help keep your customer data safe as well. By protecting your organization from losing customers due to a lack of trust regarding data protection, you’ll avoid what can be an uphill battle of regaining trust once lost.
Take Preventive Actions Against Future Attacks
If your company experiences a cyber attack, it can be difficult to not only recover but also prevent an attack from happening again.
Mobile app penetration testing can help you identify what to look for in common methodologies used by threat actors. In doing so, your team will have a deeper understanding of cyber threats and know what protections can help prevent them from successfully breaching your mobile applications and, ultimately, your entire organization.
Learn More About Managed IT and Security Services
Mobile applications are just one area of your cyber security that you must continue to monitor and strengthen. However, focusing on fortifying your complex cyber security landscape can be overwhelming and difficult to constantly maintain.
That’s where a Managed Service Provider (MSP) and Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) like Tec-Refresh can help.
With our managed IT and security services, such as our penetration test services, we can help you protect the outside and inside of your network perimeter.
Get our free downloadable brochure today to learn more about our managed IT and security services.
