Apps most frequently blacklisted by enterprise security teams

Appthority released its Enterprise Mobile Security Pulse Report for Q4 2017, which details the apps most frequently blacklisted by enterprise mobility and security teams.

Most blacklisted apps

For iOS devices, popular dating app Tinder made the list of most blacklisted apps, joining WhatsApp Messenger and Pokémon GO, which topped the list for the second consecutive quarter. For Android, the top blacklisted apps were WhatsApp Messenger, Facebook Messenger and Instagram, all new to the list from the previous quarter.

Enterprises blacklist apps for a range of security concerns, including security policy compliance and concerns about data handling. Most of the Android and iOS apps that were blacklisted in Q4 scored in the data leakage range. For Android, this was primarily due to sending data unencrypted. For iOS, this was for accessing the address book, camera and microphone, as well as tracking location and sending sensitive data unencrypted.

Riskiest Android and iOS apps

Research shows that many popular apps present in enterprise environments have mobile threat risk scores indicative of data leakage and vulnerabilities.

The riskiest Android apps in enterprise environments include: Deutsche Telekom Online Manager, NFL Mobile, OMD Mobile, Uber and WhatsApp Messenger. The riskiest iOS apps found in enterprises included Dropbox, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Pandora, Spotify and WhatsApp Messenger.

Leading destination countries for the top Android and iOS apps are the United States, Ireland and Germany. The United States, with over 85% of mobile app connections, saw the percent of trustworthy connections decline from 32% to 30.4% for Android connections and from 15% to 14.2% for iOS connections.