Developing native mobile applications as opposed to Html5-based apps adds complexity to mobile application protection management. Peter Yared from Webtrends Apps, recently posted an insightful blog entry where he points out that developing native applications for each mobile platform (i.e. Iphone, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, SymbianOs, WebOs) is not practical because the development and maintenance cost grows for each mobile platform app deployed.
Not only is Peter's view very practical from a cost and maintenance perspective, it also has vital facts protection implications. A key attribute of risk diagnosis for web applications is sometimes referred to as assault outside area, which essentially means that the more features, functionality, permissions and code accessible to users, the more vectors of assault - which increases the probability of a protection compromise. This very same vital applies to mobile apps. Having similar or selfsame features recoded for multiple platforms increases the assault outside area. Furthermore, multiple applications would want an application penetration test and a protection code communicate to ensure they are gain before deployment, or after changes or updates to the code base.
Android Development
Areas where we are seeing (and protection testing) lots of mobile application deployments, such as in healthcare, banking and consumer driven enterprises, also ordinarily have vital compliance and confidential data protection requirements - think Hipaa & Pci. Thus developing institution apps for each platform natively adds complexity to protection management. Of policy there are a collection of enterprise cases, for example if an app needs access to the camera, that will dictate native development, but the protection implications of native development protection risk administration should always be considered when creating a mobile development strategy.
Native mobile Application amelioration and protection Risk administration