A study has revealed that all most all apps of android and iOS have been hacked. A report by Arxan Technologies, reveals that 97% of the top 100 paid Android apps and 87% of the top 100 paid Apple iOS apps have been hacked.
In addition to an increase in app hacks found for commonly downloaded Popular Free apps, this year’s research also reveals evidence of widespread hacking of financial services, healthcare/medical, and retail/merchant apps, largely driven by hacks of Android apps.
Arxan’s 2014 State of Mobile App Security report updates previous years’ indicators on the prevalence of hacked apps on the two major platforms iOS and Android. The findings of increased app hacking is especially noteworthy amidst today’s rapid growth in global mobile app usage.
Free app downloads are forecasted to increase at a rate of 99% to reach 253 billion downloads in 2017, and paid app downloads are projected to reach almost 15 billion, a 33% increase by 2017.This explosion in app usage is seen across all verticals and led by apps running on the Android mobile operating system, which continues to dominate with 85% market share.
The pursuit of greater mobile application security remains at the forefront our research and development initiatives,” said Jonathan Carter, technical director at Arxan. “We continue to evolve our security innovations based on emerging threats to ensure the strongest application protection for our customers in the dynamic battlefield against hackers.”
The findings were based on an analysis of 360 apps, including 100 top paid and the same 20 popular free apps from each platform, as well as 40 apps in the financial services, retail/merchant, and healthcare/medical categories (20 apps per platform)