97 Things Every Application Security Professional Should Know

Chapter 78. Mobile Application Security Using Containerization

Reet Kaur

The remote working culture has led to more and more people using their laptops, tablets, and smartphones for both work and personal use. Many companies have developed Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies to allow remote employees to use their personal devices to connect to corporate networks. While these provisions in policy surely enhance workforce mobility, it also brings several security and privacy challenges.

There is a direct risk of commingling personal and corporate data, including potential exposure to sensitive corporate risk, which may lead to unintentional data leaks or security breaches caused by interaction between personal and corporate applications containing sensitive, work-related information.

Containerization can help partition applications on mobile devices to separate corporate data and personal data, while preventing unauthorized access by other applications or malicious actors on mobile devices. This ensures better privacy, data protection, and control over sensitive information within secure containers on the same mobile device, helping to be compliant with regulations.

Separation between applications is done using virtualization or application sandboxing techniques, by isolating each application within its own container, creating a boundary that separates it from other applications ...