There may be an app for everything, but whether they are spying on or stealing from you depends on how secure they are.
The General Services Administration wants to make sure federal agencies know what their apps are doing and recently posted a webinar on making them more secure.
In a 46-minute presentation from Vincent Sritapan, program manager for the Department of Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, and Red Hat’s Josh Bentley go in depth on the 6 Mobile User Experience Guidelines and Recommendations and how to use them to provide secure apps for federal agencies.
Sritapan, whose HSARPA office works with federal agencies to develop and vet mobile applications for official use, said in the webinar that unsecure apps can open users up to spying through the their smartphone’s microphone, camera and location tracking features or provide hackers with a wealth of data.
“What we’ve seen in this space is that you understand with mobile application, whether you are developing for an enterprise organization, is that developers are really there enable productivity, to do innovation,” he said.
“What they don’t think of really is security and privacy. Those things are an afterthought.”
Sritapan offered tips to secure the apps, including frequent security evaluations and how government and industry are collaborating on app security.
Watch the full webinar here.
