Consumer mobile apps have greatly improved the customer experience in many industries. The convenience of completing a banking transaction or booking a doctor’s appointment straight from a mobile phone can save consumers the time and headache of having to physically set foot inside a bank, or having to wait on the phone for a nurse. Now that the world has shifted to a contactless way of life in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an even greater adoption of consumer apps for finance, gaming, and overall collaboration. According to the analytics platform App Annie, mobile app usage grew 40% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2020, and app downloads reached a high of nearly 35 billion in the same time period.
While consumers are enjoying the ease and convenience of mobile apps, cybercriminals and bad actors are actively taking advantage of this vulnerable attack vector. Cyberattacks on mobile applications have grown exponentially and have become more sophisticated than ever before. Lack of consumer education and awareness leaves users vulnerable to mobile attacks. The average mobile application user often either does not know about mobile threats and attacks, or does not know how to protect themselves and their data. Moreover, once end users start using an application, they put their trust in the developer and that developer’s presumed expertise in ensuring the security of their data.
With the publication of your app into a public app store, you also put your reputation and the confidence consumers have in your brand to the test. Whether you develop an application for a financial institution, local government, or entertainment company, your application and its users may very well end up being the target of mobile attacks. So how can organizations and mobile app developers ensure that they’re not putting their customers at risk?
The truth of the matter is, the traditional approach to mobile application security is no longer effective against ever-evolving mobile attack methods, nor is it keeping up with the fast-growing mobile adoption rate globally. Bad actors can easily exploit unprotected applications, steal consumer data, and cause permanent damage to reputations, credit scores and brands.
Modern Problems Require Modern Solutions
Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of BlackBerry Spark® SDK beta, which is open to all developers. We invite developers who care about their users, data and app security to become first adopters and influencers by utilizing BlackBerry Spark SDK beta, and exchanging feedback with our engineering and product teams.
BlackBerry Spark SDK provides a powerful set of tools that leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide in-app cyber threat protection. The in-app SDK is designed for app owners and developers to help protect their applications, users, and data from malicious attacks while assuring compliance and user privacy. Organizations can easily and quickly secure their consumer apps by leveraging a wide range of developer tools and methodologies, including hardening, anti-tampering, mobile threat defense, and threat status reporting by leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Developers and organizations trust the BlackBerry® Dynamics™ platform to create secure enterprise applications, deployed and managed with BlackBerry® UEM. With BlackBerry Spark SDK, we extend BlackBerry’s trusted capabilities to secure mobile applications beyond enterprise boundaries, to help protect consumer applications without requiring any type of management console.
Often, developers are reticent to implement existing security solutions as they feel they may negatively impact user experience. With BlackBerry Spark SDK, developers are in full charge of the user experience and UI, as they know their users and their needs the best. BlackBerry Spark SDK provides visibility into important security events, landscapes, and data on how these security events impact their end-users. With the ability to gain insights into application security, application developers and owners can continuously optimize user experience and app security.
Join Us at the BlackBerry Virtual Security Summit 2020
Mobile application security generates and collects mass data about devices, uses, and users. Much of this data is personal, and some (medical, financial, or personal) can be very sensitive. Application security presents risks for consumers when protecting their user privacy. BlackBerry Spark SDK offers advanced security capabilities for in-app protection without exposing user identities. It also offers an extra layer of security by preventing, detecting, and improving overall security hygiene against data theft for consumer apps on iOS and Android devices.
To learn more about secure mobile apps and BlackBerry Spark SDK, join us at our virtual 2020 BlackBerry Security Summit (October 6-7). BlackBerry’s Matthew Parks will be presenting a session titled, “Protecting Your Users and Reputation with the BlackBerry In-App Protection SDK.”
Further Reading:
Learn more about benefits and use cases addressed by BlackBerry Spark SDK
Start developing with BlackBerry Spark SDK and securing your applications with resources on BlackBerry Developers Portal.
Explore the sample code for iOS and Android in our GitHub repository.
