In today’s fast-evolving mobile sphere, organisations are challenged by managing innovation with security. Mobile app wrapping has developed as a key technology that allows enterprises to maintain control of their applications while ensuring their security and compliance parameters. For developers in the United States, knowledge of the technical intricacies of mobile app wrapping is becoming more and more critical as BYOD policies and remote work continue to revolutionise the enterprise mobility world.
In this article, the technical underpinnings of mobile app wrapping are discussed, followed by implementation strategies and best practice recommendations for US-based developers with regard to this important area of mobile application security and management.
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Understanding Mobile App Wrapping
Mobile app wrapping is a post-development process whereby an existing mobile app is wrapped with a new management layer. This technology allows an application to be surrounded by a safe container so that organisations can add other security mechanisms, policies, management capabilities, etc., without touching the original source code of the application.
Under its crux, at its essence, mobile app wrapping uses a software development kit (SDK) that would mediate between the app and the device’s operating system. When a wrapped application has been launched, the wrapper itself has been run first, making the secure connections, authenticating the user, enforcing policies, and then running the actual application inside this secure environment.
For developers in the US market, where data privacy legislation is very strict, such as CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) and industry-specific criteria like HIPAA for healthcare apps, App Wrapping is a technical enforcement of the fulfilment of regulations without re-engineering the applications from zero.
Technical Implementation of Mobile App Wrapping
The process of mobile app wrapping entails a number of independent technical steps that are meaningful to understand by developers, including:
Binary Modification
At its bare bones, mobile app wrapping requires tweaks to the binary of the application. For Android applications, this usually means decompiling the APK, injecting the wrapper and then recompiling and signing the application. For ios applications, all you need to do is deal directly with the IPA file and exploit Apple’s provisioning facilities.
US developers must be aware that this binary modification requires special care about code signatures and certificates, taking into account the harsh measures of App Store policies provided by Apple, and rigorous security reviews of Google.
API Interception and Management
API interception is a critical technical feature of mobile app wrapping. The wrapper intercepts API calls between the application and the operating system, enabling it to:
- Filter and monitor network traffic
- Enforce data encryption standards
- Put in place conditional access depending on the state of device/user authentication
- Block certain functions according to policy needs
This API interception layer becomes especially relevant to financial and healthcare applications in the US market, where transfer of sensitive data must follow encryption standards and regulations.
Authentication and Identity Management Integration
Wrapping mobile apps generally combines with enterprise identity management systems to build additional authentication layers on top of what one might put in a traditional app. This, from the technical point of view, typically includes:
- SAML / OAuth identity providers integration
- Certificate-based authentication mechanisms
- Multi-factor authentication workflows
- Biometric authentication interfaces
Such integrations are critical for the US government contractors and regulated industries in which identity assurance levels must meet specific federal requirements.
Security Features Enabled by Mobile App Wrapping
Mobile app wrapping unlocks a series of security abilities that are of particular contention for US-based developers who are dealing with sensitive corporate or customer data:
Data Leakage Prevention
Wrapped applications are able to run controls that inhibit data from being copied, pasted or shared from the protected container. Technically, this means intercepting clipboard activities and file system interactions, which presents an especially daunting task in modern OS versions for mobiles which prioritise privacy.
Encryption Enforcement
Data at rest and in-transit encryption can even be enforced through app wrapping, where necessary, FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic modules are used, as demanded by US federal agencies and their contractors. Developers need to appreciate that wrapped applications can impose TLS version minimums and cypher suite constraints above and beyond what the operating system would set.
Offline Access Controls
One of the great technical details of mobile app wrapping is the possibility of maintaining offline access to application data. Wrappers may include time-based access controls that would require persistent online authentication, so that devices that are lost or stolen cannot access sensitive information for the indefinite future.
Integration with Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)
For US enterprises, mobile app wrapping hardly comes in isolation. Rather than that, it is an element of a more global Enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution that has a number of technical integration points:
Policy Management APIS
Secure channels are used to deliver policy updates to wrapped applications, usually involving connection to management servers with certificate-pinning. Though changes to this policy may be hidden, developers need to know in what capacity these policy changes will impact application behaviour and user experience.
Telemetry and Compliance Reporting
Usage data, security events and compliance information are gathered and transmitted back to EMM systems by App wrappers. This telemetry capacity demands extreme care when determining data minimisation principles, particularly in the era of the US privacy laws.
Conditional Access Implementation
The current app wrapping solutions include conditional access according to device status, geographical location, the state of networks, and user risk profiles. This necessitates complex context-aware programming techniques that must be factored in by developers during the evaluation of wrapped applications.
Conclusion
Mobile app wrapping is a key technology for monitoring security requirements versus application functionality in the US enterprise world. By having an understanding of the technical foundations of this approach, developers are better equipped to manoeuvre through the intricacies of enterprise mobility while ensuring that their applications follow the high standards of security required of regulated industries.
Such companies like Doverunner are shaping this space through innovation, providing all-encompassing mobile app wrapping solutions specific to the regulatory context of the US market. Doverunner’s platform makes it easy to deploy advanced technical solutions with minimal performance overheads historically attached to wrapped ones. Their breakthroughs towards using AI to detect threats in wrapped applications are especially interesting to developers who work in high-security environments. With the ever-growing evolution of mobile threats, partnerships with specialised security providers such as Doverunner are taking on an increasingly important role for US developers who want to protect critical corporate and customer data while delivering excellent mobile experiences.
