How to Secure Your Flutter Mobile App: 8 Essential Tips
Since its debut in 2018, flutter has been used by over 2 million developers, making it one of the most popular development frameworks available. Google confirmed this in 2020. Initially, the flutter framework could only be used to create apps for the Android and iOS mobile platforms. Still, the framework’s popularity among flutter developers has grown since we published flutter for desktop and online.
Our primary focus is on developing new features and fixing bugs; thus, we only sometimes pay attention to ensuring our app is secure and reliable. This is because we have been too preoccupied with adding new features and building code to worry about ensuring everything is unharmed.
This article will go through eight security tips for your flutter app so you can utilize them when building an app from scratch on flutter.
1. Obfuscate Code
So, the first step in making your Flutter mobile applications more secure is to obfuscate the code. Explain the concept of obfuscating code.
It is possible to download any apk file on Android, as the definition of obfuscation is to “make the code harder to read for reverse engineering.” Since it is all open source, apk can be disassembled into all the files, allowing you to see the code after decompressing it. The java source code and associated files are readily available for inspection. Therefore, obfuscation does not eliminate the code; it just makes it harder to read. The code is not altered in any way. It makes things less human-readable by changing the names of variables, classes, locations, and the like.
In the world of computer programming, this is a completely general term. As a result, your app’s binary will be more difficult for humans to decipher.
Information like the names of functions, classes, and strings can be generated and provided through reverse engineering a Flutter or Android app. Due to the extensive information disclosure, API (Application Programming Interfaces) keys are also exposed.
If your class and function names reveal your business logic, you have made yourself more secure against reverse engineering.
2. Background Snapshots
The huge state is saved when the program is in the background because the operating system takes a snapshot to go on to the next stage.
When you minimize an app and switch between it and others, the screenshot of the last screen you were using will follow you. If you were entering credit card information into this app and then minimizing it, the details would be visible to anyone who scrolled through your minimized apps.
For instance, the clock app and the calendar app both have snapshots, and so do we; this is a useful feature, but it could be better if you want to protect sensitive data.
Google Pay is the best illustration of this. If you open the app and begin entering your banking information or initiating a money transfer, the app will launch in the background, and your screen will turn white to conceal its presence.
3. Use the latest technologies
Therefore, keep the third point in mind when creating a new Flutter app. You should base your work on the latest version.
One of the best and simplest methods to keep your apps secure is to use the most recent versions of the Flutter software development kit, plugins, and packages. Google regularly releases updates and security fixes for the Flutter framework to address newly found vulnerabilities.
Identify any problems that have not been reported on the Google Flutter repository and submit a fix.
4. Clearing the RAM cache
Fourthly, if you are working on an important and secure project, like a banking app, you should regularly clear your in-memory cache. Flutter is the safest method in mobile development for storing data retrieved from a server or database and, thus, the safest method for storing data in memory.
5. Local Authentication
After this, we move on to the topic of local authentication. It is preferable to require local authentication from the user whenever a snapshot is reopened.
When I say, “local authentication,” I am referring to methods like biometrics, facial recognition, and the like, so if you look at Whatsapp, you will notice that they have included a fingerprint lock.
6. Secure Storage
To go to the next step, secure storage, you will require the plugin known as SQLite if you are utilizing shared preferences or an SQLite database.
Therefore, your app’s shared preferences ensure that your data remains even after you close the app. Keeping plaintext passwords or PINs in shared preferences is not a clever idea because other programs can access them through code, and the user can delete them anytime.
If you must store something important to you and your partner, use encryption to protect the data first.
7. Restrict Network Traffic
This brings us to point seven, which limits data transfer across the network. Network Traffic Control has you covered when it comes to blocking unwanted website traffic. A Transport Secure Layer is typically used to encrypt data transmissions between your mobile apps and your servers (T.L.S).
8. Safeguard against jailbreaking
Finally, there is security that prevents jailbreaks. To put it simply, jailbreaking refers specifically to iOS devices. Jailbreaking is gaining administrative control over an iOS device to bypass Apple’s security measures.
For example, if you wanted to install third-party software or make other modifications to your Android device, you would need to enter developer mode. The device will constantly be in some version of this condition, and while it can be helpful in some circumstances, it is only sometimes in a good place to be in.
Conclusion
So, to make your app safer and more reliable, here are eight measures to take. While there is no way to ensure your application will be secure every time, taking these eight procedures will improve your odds. Also, you can get help from the best Flutter development App Company to enhance your app security.
