Mobile Application Security

Definition - What does Mobile Application Security mean?

Mobile application security refers to a comprehensive security solution for mobile applications running on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. It is intended to protect personal or enterprise data stored in these devices.

Techopedia explains Mobile Application Security

Mobile application security involves examining the structure of mobile applications and studying how they work, as well as looking at major threat areas and what hackers or other attackers want to accomplish. Security experts develop assessments based on issues like theft of financial data or personal identifiers, or unauthorized access to devices.

Areas covered by mobile application security include threat modeling, source code review and risk analysis. Developers may look at areas like a database, cache or configuration files, or at the underlying platform to understand how to better protect mobile applications and devices from vulnerabilities.

In a sense, mobile application security is a kind of "next-generation" process based on security solutions intended for the personal computer. Like personal computers, mobile devices run on operating systems that have their own vulnerabilities and security issues. As mobile devices become ubiquitous, security experts are scrambling to catch up by developing mobile application security processes and solutions for the future.