Effective Security Testing of Mobile Applications for Building Trust in the Digital World

In recent years, mobile applications have become increasingly important. These applications differ significantly from desktop and web applications, and being used increasingly in various enterprise domains. Accordingly, this motivates the mobile industries to increase the accessibility of mobile applications and their development across many platforms, including Android and iPhone. This research work discusses the security testing procedure and features of India's first indigenous AppStore “mSeva AppStore”. To ensure the quality of the hosted mobile applications, distinct techniques, and effective testing approaches are required. Before hosting the application on mSeva AppStore regressive testing is performed in all aspects like insecure permissions, data storage, secure logic, proper platform algorithms, etc. However, in the current mobile application testing scenario, other AppStore does not consider all factors before hosting the applications, which is quite necessary. This study highlights the key terminologies of mobile application testing and quality parameters. Further, demonstrates the actual results that are obtained during the security testing of various applications. Along with this, the first-ever Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) based classification regarding common artifacts in mobile application testing is provided. The peculiarities discussed with respect to mobile applications and the testing requirements in the context of secure hosting will help the relevant researcher and stakeholders in this field.