Why Weak Mobile App Security Will Impact Retailers in 2023

Mobile e-commerce, or m-commerce, is when customers shop through their mobile devices. It is expected that mobile e-commerce in the United States will nearly double in total retail sales between 2020 and 2025. By 2025, sales are expected to reach $728.28 billion and make up 44.2% of retail ecommerce sales in the U.S.

Mobile devices have certainly made it more convenient to shop online from anywhere, and mobile commerce apps have made that even more accessible. According to data.ai, consumers spent over 100 billion hours on shopping apps in 2021 worldwide. Mobile e-commerce is becoming increasingly sought-after for consumers to make purchases; however, mobile e-commerce security hasn’t always been prioritized.

Mobile E-commerce Becomes Target

As e-commerce mobile apps become more popular and frequently used, they also become sizeable targets for bad actors to steal sensitive data.

The owner of Shein, a popular women’s clothing retailer, was fined $1.9 million because it failed to properly handle a data breach. Customer names, email addresses, passwords, and credit card information belonging to almost 40 million customers were stolen by hackers and sold online.

Drizly, one of the largest online alcohol delivery companies in North America, suffered a cyber-attack resulting in a data breach. As many as 2.5 million customers may have been affected, and the data exposed included phone numbers and IP addresses. On top of that, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission plans to hold Drizly’s CEO accountable for the data breach and misuse of customer data under his watch.

Secure Mobile App, the Right Way

As this market becomes more competitive, 46% of retailers surveyed by Shopify said they will spend more on their custom mobile app. It has become clear that the pressures mobile app developers face has increased as these apps gain popularity. In the 2022 Verizon Mobile Security Index report, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they’d come under pressure to sacrifice mobile-device security “to get the job done.” 79% of those (52% of all respondents) had succumbed to that pressure. Having mobile app security in mind throughout the entire development cycle is critical.

Here are five steps to take to secure your mobile applications:

• Write secure code
  Security must be a top priority as you develop code, not afterward. When developers implement a “security by design” approach, it often pays off in the long run by reducing future costs and risk mitigation.
• Penetration testing
  Throughout the development lifecycle, mobile application security testing should be automated to reduce risk while keeping schedules on track. Penetration testing is the practice of simulating attacks on a system in an attempt to gain access, with the goal of determining if the app is secure.
• Use authorized APIs only
  An authorized API is the approval that a specific client has the right to make a request, giving authorization to someone that you want to have the right to access data.
• Patch constantly
  The most significant update is undoubtedly the security patch, which mitigates a previously identified vulnerability that bad actors can leverage to gain unauthorized access to your device and personal data, according to The Cybersecurity Tech Accord.
• Utilize application-level security
  Eclypses MTE (MicroToken Exchange) technology is a data security solution supplying application-level security through toolkits that are FIPS 140-3 verified. The cryptographic library and collection of patented solutions give developers many ways to add security without sacrificing speed and efficiency.

Retailers need to prioritize mobile app security in order to protect customer relations, brand image, and potential financial loss. It only takes one security breach for customers to abandon your mobile app and stop considering your brand trustworthy. Providing customers with a safe shopping experience is crucial as we approach 2023.  If customers cannot trust your mobile app from stealing their data, they will take their business somewhere else.

By Aron Seader From Eclypses