Comprehensive Mobile App Security and Functionality Audit

The importance of Mobile Application Audits - ensuring security and functionality

In the evolving landscape of mobile applications, ensuring the project's security, performance, and maintainability is crucial. The mobile application audits can achieve all of these. The audit is the process during which we can check your project and provide valuable feedback to help you avoid some troubles with the development or maintenance. It's also an excellent opportunity to include independent specialists who take a fresh look at your mobile app.
This article explains how we perform such an audit at MoodUp and what benefits you may expect!

Mobile Applications Security Audit

Nowadays, it is essential to make your app secure. Users believe you are taking good care of their data while they use your app. They trust that everything they enter into your product is stored properly on the device. Besides, you have to take care of the legal aspects. There are more and more mechanisms that need to be implemented in order to follow particular countries' laws. During the audit, we closely verify the app's code to ensure that personal data is kept safe.
All of the more extensive projects use some external dependencies - the extra code that is not controlled by the project authors. It could be simple libraries as well as bigger third-party frameworks that perform security-sensitive operations. So, it is also important to make sure the integration between the mobile app and those third-party utilities is done securely; for example, check if the access keys are stored in a secure way.
During the application security testing, we always emphasize this topic and check the connection between the app and third-party services. We also check if the dependencies are up to date, which is important to follow all the security standards and updates. You can think of the security audit as a health check for your product. It's not just about fixing problems. It's about ensuring everything runs smoothly, keeping your users' sensitive data safe, and avoiding any potential security issues.

Project Structure and Maintainability Audit

Another element of a well-performed project audit is a general source code review. Having experts outside of your team to look into the code pays off. It doesn't mean we assume the code is of poor quality! Sometimes, it's just good for somebody to take a fresh look. When working on a project for a long time, the team may miss or avoid some important topics, very often unconsciously. For example, it may happen because of time pressure to deliver the project. External code reviews act as a remedy, allowing one to scrutinize the codebase. The intention of auditing your mobile app is not to question the competence of the internal team but to leverage diverse insights.
The project structure is also fundamental regarding its scalability and maintainability. A well-organized and well-thought-out project is always easier to maintain. It can also influence the maintenance cost. We examine the project structure and used patterns to check if they fit correctly to the size of your project. A properly designed project not only enhances day-to-day development but also future-proofs it against evolving requirements.
Performing the audit, we look deeply into your code and its structure. We also check if the good practices have been followed. As a result of our professional examination, we will prepare a list of our findings and a list of potential solutions with some insights on how to introduce them correctly. You can be sure that we will deliver to you clear and concise report of your mobile app.

The Performance Look Into The Project

The good app is the one that works smoothly even on slightly older mobile devices. From the users' perspective, there is nothing worse than using a laggy and unstable app. This is why it is vital to keep your app's performance under control. Think of the consequences - bad performance can discourage the users from using or purchasing your app.
During the project audit at Mood Up, we run the app on several devices under the monitoring tools to check if the performance meets the expectations. If the performance is unsatisfactory, we search the code for problems causing it.
Next, we list and describe all the encountered problems, their importance and potential improvements. Very often, only some of them have to be solved immediately. For example, mobile security problems are usually the highest priority, while minor performance issues can be resolved later. However, knowing about the problem and fixing it when you have the resources to do so is always better than having no idea the problem exists.

Summary

Security, maintainability and great performance are non-negotiable for application success. Thanks to a well-performed, professional audit, you can achieve these objectives. It does't matter if your mobile app is developed in Flutter or in native app like android and iOS. Goal is to identify the vulnerability of your mobile app and prevent or fix them.
During the examination process, we focus on your project to check and identify vulnerabilities that can be problematic in the future. You can also order an audit to ensure your project is on the right track. A fresh look from non-biased experts helps to notice even minor issues that can escalate in the future.
The final step of an audit is a comprehensive document summarizing findings and recommendations. This document serves as a guide for immediate improvements and lays the groundwork for future project enhancements. If you are interested in further cooperation, we are ready to provide you with a team to support you with implementing our recommendations.